the hinge is creaking

it's about to pop off its hinges
break right off the wall
the same wall that's
pretty much held it up
forever
even in the midst of the
green grasses of the teenage golf courses
when you could see her through
the window or in the driveway
or whatever / wherever you saw her -
but maybe you didn't even see her.
maybe it was all lost on you
lost in your imagination
where you used to be able
to let songs permeate through the cranium
fill in the cracks and
smoke the crack that you
might consider your brain ...

there are people that come and go in your life
some of them make sense
and others keep on
going on and on - oink and oink
not making a lick of sense at all
forever for ******* ever
and there's nothing you can say to them
because they live in their own tribes
inside their own heads and
none of them even played with toys as
kids. not a single one. maybe one.
no - not even one.

there's a calm that comes over you
when you realize that you are the last
of your kind. nobody else - not a single one.
haha
the first and last of your own kind...
i guess we all are, huh?
thank god there's nobody else out there
just exactly like each one of us.

for the love of god
let me meet met.

nice to meet me.

go for the chills my boy
whatever the hell it takes -
go for the full body chills,
the ones that start in your ****
trickle down the backs of your knees
drift up into the top of your cabeza
make ya think there's chakras and all that,
kind of chills that make ya think
somebodys standing behind ya
in the best possible light,
hand on your shoulder
watching you make the right decision
over and over and over again.

go for those chills, my love.

go for the risk. where's the risk?
who's got the risk? gimme! gimme!
pshh... selling risk up and down the stairs
like foolhardy can-boys sell miller lite
at the ball games that we coulda gone to,
where i never woulda seen your picture.
selling risk like it's real risk -
saying, hey! hee.. haa.. lookee over here -
we got risk for ya: start a family!
aint nothing more risky than that!
and then boom! your lying on
your back, in bed with an accountant,
and he's a'counting out your finances
planning your pleasures down to the dime,
[won't letcha buy that dress that slips right off.
ya know, one with the black lace all over?
never did a great job hiding nothing from me,
ya little piece uh risky business, you].

no, err, sorry then...
can't afford that risk...
not in the spreadsheet...
can'tttttttttt compute ....
err... no second opinions...
err... find FAQ's for further information.

i got a wooden spoon, derr.....
that's me ^^^.
spot the difference.

one makes ya smile,
the other takes it away.
one makes ya laugh,
the other takes it away.
one makes you come,
the other takes it away.
one gives you chills,
the other takes 'em away.

how's about we dine on perrier
and Michelin stars, tonight?
i promise i'll wear the napkin
round my esophagus, but only
if you reach 'cross the table
and tie it tight around me.
mmmn... tie it a bit too tight
at first, then slip a finger in between.

can you feel my pulse?

when i think of you
it's always christmas in my heart.
it's always icy cold and brisk -
not the kind of cold that you bristle at,
but the cold that makes you gasp for a breath,
like you've just realized you're alive.

the feeling swells from my heart,
up the sides of my neck,
warming everything it touches,
enflaming muscles it has no business brushing,
until i can barely get any air down my windpipe.
my lungs seize up, just as they are,
and i can't remember ever taking a deep breath in my life.
are you buried down there in my solar plexus still?

i know i've gotta be out of my mind -
that's one thing i'm sure of these days.
but i can't shake that excitement from my heart,
like i might see you this time,
you might be around just for a few days
and we might sneak off together to talk,
dreaming dreams bigger than each of us,
bigger than both of us,
or just sit somewhere and be silent.
i'll make up and excuse about seeing an old friend,
not a lie, really. no, not a lie at all. simply understated.

god i'm thankful for these memories.
i'm so grateful, through and through,
for the blaze that flames on in my heart,
a feeling i could never forget, never replace.
God bless the freezing air, the frost on the windows,
the leafless trees, stiff and cold on the side streets,
the brick buildings and all their contained heat,
a hot tea, and you forgetting all the words to all the songs,
the fireplace in the downstairs den that I'll never see again.

God bless the early mornings and late nights,
the trading of songs back and forth,
the wrapping of emotional gifts and
the excitement of opening them in front of each other,
the beanies and layers of coats and sweaters,
the dressing up, doing of hair, & sweet smelling perfume.
God bless the light beers and sweet wines,
antique shopping and long cash-wrap lines,
lattes and americanos, hot in your little hand,
the smell of coffee beans wafting through my nostrils
early in the morning when mom is the only one awake.

but most of all god bless the music.
the sound of church bells drawing out
a year's worth of love and hope from my heart,
eternal, transcendent and completely dissociated from personality,
the electric guitars playing "o holy night",
my mom on the piano, a text from you on the screen.

i'd be nothing without that music, different without you.
i don't miss the arguments and the fights, the awkwardness,
but i miss the rosy edges of everything,
all of my experiences at Christmas are tainted by you -
i miss focusing on what i'm doing,
while always half-focusing on you.
"sure, i'm helping cook dinner - but did my phone just buzz?!"
it did. it always did. whenever i checked, it was buzzing.

my brain can't understand this
or plan what needs to be done,
so i will leave the matter to my heart,
the ***** of deepening, infiltrating
penetrating and incorporating all of the love it feels
into every moment of every day of my life.

out here, a glass is raised,  always waiting for your cheers.

you could travel to india.
you could hop on a plane
and end up something like
10,000 miles away from here
in the middle of the rain forest
overlooking a beautiful waterfall,
the mist kissing your cheeks just
the perfect amount to remind you
that you're loved by Mother Earth.
you could do that. sure, you could do that.

or you could dig a really big hole,
i'm talking about a massive hole
that you could start to climb down in
and work towards reaching the center of the earth,
running into all sorts of mythical creatures:
demons and demigods, demogorgons and dugtrio.
you could get way way deep down there
and find that in the center of it all is
Indra's net, and all of a sudden
everything in the universe makes sense.
and it would make sense. and you'd be right.

or you could realize it all
right here and right now.
you could understand that
going anywhere out there
really doesn't take you anywhere.
you could see that by going anywhere
you prove that you don't quite understand
the point of what you are doing.
you're putting lipstick on a pig.
you're restating the directions
instead of just following them.
"Bake the cake at 450 for 10 minutes" becomes
"Cook the pastry one degree above 449 for 600 seconds."
the truth is that you've got every right to do that.
it's just that one way or another
you don't eat unless the cake gets baked,
and it doesn't matter how many ways you read the instructions,
you've still gotta put it in the oven and wait.

no money is needed to be brave.


not a dime is needed to show respect,
nor to grant privacy to another being, no matter how small.

nothing is required of you to be kind;
to care about the smallest things
that most people overlook:
feeling the moth on your leg
or paying attention to where
the wind is gusting from.

[just looking at a tree
and revering it for standing
tall and strong, daily.]

there's no charge to be aware.
and in that awareness comes
a certain knowing that
in due time all things will come to you-
nothing that is forced is
ever happening at the right time.
wait and it shall find you.
move and it shall seek.

nature has it's own economy:
it is an economy that accepts
love as currency and
the exchange rate changes
moment by moment.
in this world, i think,
the value is ever increasing.

is it weird that i feel like i never have any ideas?
i mean, could the idea fairy just speak up a bit?
is that too much to ask of my own personal imaginary genius?
just turn up the volume a little bit. ok, now the other ****.
everybody ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
great, aannnnd i still can't hear a ****** thing he's saying.

they tell me that the whole world is speaking to me...
that there is an intimate meaning in everything that happens
and that it somehow pertains to my personal life:
the light turns red, but you drive thru anyway, and
BAM you get sideswiped and you're ******* dead.
they tell me there's meaning in that to learn from.
yea like maybe don't go out into the intersection
when you know **** well the light's red?

but that's not the kind of meaning they're talking about.
the kind they're talking about whispers like a willow tree,
like a real-life "colors of the wind" remake is just going on,
swirling around your head and through your *****
all the **** time... and it's actually telling you something.
see, there's a message in that ***** damage you just received.
(or did it pass right through like some Slimer type of creature?)
["a fireplace just kind of appears and he goes through it like this"]

yeah well pick up the t shirt gun, Egon, and launch a few into the stands
because there's a widespread panic down at the community park...
photographers lined up wall to wall just to catch the tiniest glimpse of
the yetti who's writing a hemmingway-esque classic from cover to cover!
tell me who tf ever wrote a book by sitting down at the computer,
looking at the blank screen, and just starting off in a clear direction like,
"well, this 400 page novel is going to be about this, that, and the other,
here's 15 events that will help us get to a coherent ending, now type!"
[i swear some dude reading this is gonna be like, "um.. i can do that."
yeah? well you can shut up for now friend, cuz nobody's listening.]

[sigh.]

that was the idea fairy, wasn't it?

sometimes i wonder if shakespeare was behind the pen
that fiddled and diddled in that old church parking lot
i drove by it the other day but there was no one there
nobody freezing their buns off in the wake of the open door
nobody trying to canoodle in the back seat that wasn't folded down
nobody even thinking about pulling into that darkness.
would you even do that again? i would a hundred times think.
what even happened to that kid who used to write songs
and play them as if he were playing in front of a hundred eyes
but they were all your eyes and there wasn't a flame in existence
that was brighter than they when each lit up in its own way.
what even happened to the girl who showed that boy her house
and the colonial colloquial drapery and carpeting wall to wall,
her little sister sticking her finger into the brownie batter
and protective mother who i've gotta admit was 100 percent right:
stay away from the bad man with the non-leather patagonia jacket
and all of his sassy ideas that got him good grades in k-8
but really started to expose his weaknesses steeped in frivolity
when he got into the upper level courses and advanced placements.
[a GD mile wide and an inch deep, that's what me thinks jar jar binx]
stay away from the burnt out eagle scout who let his guard down
and allowed your guard down both metaphorically and not sooo... but
remember that coffee shop show that you never came to?
strange, it feels in this moment like an aching sore thumb.
i listened to joshua radin all the way home and thought
christ what am i even going to do about this can this work and
if it can work how can it work but if it can't work why can't it work?
because lord knows this lady is easy to please when we drink. but
silly,you're tough as ***** ****** nails when you need to be told no.
& i aint never heard of sucha thing as a dude who's charming as hell
when he's telling a gorgeous woman sum'thin she don't wanna hear;
make me a pill for that and i'll sell it on The Street for days without end.
[so how much supply you got when the thing aint even fda approved?]
"lose yourself in what you're doing and you'll never work a day" is
what they tell me while they cast me into this steel bending furnace
and demand me to find a way to be cool and relax and chill the f out-
been doing that on my own and there's no milky white ear to listen
or a record to put it on or even a GD vocal box that feels like working
unless it's singing showtunes in the car or harmonizing to justin bbr
like i'm the **** 6th man in the pentatonix or however many there are.
capitalistically useless thing i was born with and worked really hard at
until one day it told me i don't have the capacity to scribe anymore.
so i'm forever speechless like the kid who got coal for christmas last year.
& you'd catch me in that backyard again with all the 15 year old girls
still kinda trying to impress them but mostly you, & give my shirt away:
wear it and be proud that you snubbed the bad man who passed through
with the non-leather patagonia jacket in the old church parking lot.