I'm watching my friends follow the paths of their brothers
Chain smoking pill poppers looking for love from their mothers
But instead they find it in the
Prize from their dealer
Until everything around them is nothing but a third-wheeler
And all genuine emotion is replaced with this hunger
It's days like these when I wish we were all still younger
Before I ever even considered I might watch my friends become users
When getting high was just smoking, not meeting up with random prescription drug abusers
Im watching the best people I know
use this drug as their foundation
And when it all crumbles, I hope that they have an inner realization
That they were once people others looked up to and respected,
But now they've become shadows of everything they've injected.

Light creeps in through fogged glass
To a room full of smoking enthusiasts
Dinner is served on a paper plate
In a failed attempt to rehabilitate
Red wine stains your mothers blouse
Inconsequential in this small house
Dust settles into carpets worn by time
Like the family, never to  leave Anaheim

I am naught but a twig
In the mouth of a pit bull
Clenched between wet jowls
Doom, impending.
I tried it my way,
took my own chances
Bloodied my fingers
and my lungs.
Smoked and drank
more then I ate
and I ate a lot.
Now I drink from a different bottle
This one filled with
soothing emptiness,
In peach-colored capsules.

I sit in the same chair, everyday
picking at my toe nails,
smoking cigarettes and ****
keeping an eye on the trees
and the vines creeping up my fence.
I watch the rain slide down the window,
to settle in the sweet mud.
I step outside, feel the wetness between my toes
and know that these simple impressions
are lasting, are forever.

his road goes for miles and miles
with no signs and no lights
its too dark to know
if hes been here before.
he's made better moves.
even with the slowing of his feet
his thoughts are immediate.
he packs up the feelings
that hes brought
not one excuse to prove
and continues on his road
beginning his ascent
on a road with no exits

Lofty aspirations
built on crumbling foundations
caused by faulty medications
filled with combinations
of complications
and expectations
from other generations
and fluctuations
of explanations
ignoring the implications
and frustrations
hallucinations and
interpretations
and the misrepresentations
of the ramifications
of your demonstrations


just to feel the sensations
the vibrations
of knowing you have no limitations
life is vacations
mixed with contemplations
of temptations
and on occasion
imagination

I've tried killing my leeches
the things that **** me speechless
but I can't throw that first stone
because through my mind they comb

Images of my father, when he left us
in his ****** attempt to repossess
a piece of his youth
to calm the anger the pills couldn't soothe
from his failed attempts at parenting
(a trait I hope I'm not inheriting)

I don't blame him, one hundred percent;
my mother had an iron facade of content
for years, secretly crying from the torment
suffering with the life that she never dreamt,
she started her spiral, her descent,
but I never knew to what extent
until the night he breached her trust
with fraudulent intent

It's a bridge that has burned
which every mistake he's confirmed
brought down the supports
but set me onto the right course
To be someone different
compassionate, considerate
and most of all deliberate.

a mother got on the bus
with her little boy
his hand wrapped completely in hers

they took their seats
by the window
he pressed his head
against the glass

and he looked out
at the passing cars
the people
the trees and lights

blurs
colors and noises
a cacophony of life

he saw it all
and smiled

some people were made
to do great things

a wife, children,
a 401k and
a built in pool

and some people were made for
drinking, ******
***** jeans and
Chef Boyardee

to be happy
you just have to
realize that
not everyone
will live that
seemingly perfect life

some lives are made for
nothing more than
being wasted

skin covers
my bones
my organs
maybe my soul
maybe my mind

it covers me
yet it is always
searching
for more skin

skin to
touch
rub
feel

always searching
always finding

maybe never
the right skin
but
it finds something
someone

and then
if you're lucky
your skin
and their skin
become one
somewhere.

I should not be held
Accountable for
Everything I say
Everything I see
I am a vessel
A model of
Someone else's ideals
Someone else's thoughts

My mind is not
my own any more
There is someone else
My cognition isn't my own

Controlling my mouth
Limbs
Eyes

I am not me

I am

There is a sorrow
In the world
So profound
So heavy

So heavy
You can see it

You can see it in
a newborns eyes
completely absorbing
everything around him

You can see it in
the woman on the corner
waiting for the walk signal
completely engrossed in
her cell phone

You can see it in
a balloon,
tied to the wrist of a young girl
pulling towards the clouds.

That balloon
has the right idea.

Close your eyes,
and let yourself float above
That sadness

Towards the clouds
before you wither,
deflated,
and let the sorrow
engulf you.

Everything is a paradox
From the fireflies to the boondocks
There is no paradigm
No pattern to be followed
You have to climb
Through the slime
the crime
the grime.

Time?
None.
Everyone will be outdone
In a world where anyone
Gets a trophy for their shelf
It's all about yourself

Relax while you can
Doctors, rapists, the businessman

Set fire to the bible
This is it, you're tribal

**** until you die!
Drink, steal, lie.

Because nothing matters.
Now go,

run,

scatter.

I watched the drop forge
Across from my home.
My window faces it
and everyday,
I watch.

I watch the metal being poured
making washers, pipes, rings
and bolts

And I feel the hammer fall
It shakes the house
The windows rattle

The dishes clink-clank together.

The floor vibrates with the BANG BANG
of the hammer
and there's nothing I can do to stop it

Somehow
I've managed to sleep through it
slept through it for years.

I can sleep through the pounding
the shaking, the noise.

But my thoughts, though silent,
keep me awake.

And there's nothing I can do to stop it.

Little words, simple words
on a white screen
They speak louder then I could

The air was cold
was freezing.
The air was like ice
But the cigarette warmed everything
Your lungs
Your finger
Your conversations.

Eventually it kills you
like everything else does
But it's cheaper then a woman.

There was a small fire
low, hardly burning.
It wasn't warm
but it was something to look at
something that changed
in a house that stayed so still.