Is pity passed down in the genes?
What about sympathy?
I fear I've inherited an overabundance of both.

It drains me to the point where I feel like a ghost.
Sometimes I wonder if I didn't die a long time ago.

Am I stuck in limbo,
just repeating the same old pattern?

I once knew a man
who said,
"Invest while you can."
I told him I didn't have any money.
"Well, I can't help you then."

I once met this kid
who told me his sins.
I couldn't say why,
I hardly knew him.
"You've a trustworthy face,
and you're leaving tomorrow."
But I never asked to be burdened by his sorrow.

I once loved a girl
who became my world.
I clung to her every single last word.
Then she was gone
to leave me in silence.
I replaced it with noises of hatred and violence.

I once had a choice
to make something new,
but I still hear her voice
telling me what to do.

I once spent a night
with a spirited punk.
Willful and passionate,
but down on his luck.
We painted the town red
and made Down the new Up.

I once read a book
that spelled out my life.
A real page turner,
though I know it's all lies.

Someone once told me
not to live in the past.
"Be here right now,
the future comes fast."
But I often look back
to cry or to laugh,
and on nights such as these
I'll write epitaphs.

I wish I had a time machine to go back and kick my own ***.
Or at least try to talk some sense into myself.
"Listen kid, this **** doesn't bode well. You're burning alive and headed for hell."
Maybe writing is its own kind of time travel.
Billy Pilgrim knows what I'm talking about.
"Chin up child. Stop playing wild. I know you're trying to make your own style,
but you'll lose more than you'll gain."
But before I step in and turn the dial, my future self comes back to slap my hand.
"Let it be," I'll say to me.
One day you'll understand.

I got filled up with something thrilling and I've been
spilling it out of me ever since.
Inspiration is the basis of how to make a difference.
Swelled up from songs and quotes
now spread them out into the world.

Pay it forward, play it back;
put that ride in gear
get it back on track.

There's a whole world of people down in the dumps.
If you've got passion and if you can feel love,
then extend your hand to pull the others up.

I am not above you.
You are a reflection of how I was before.
I'm no longer afraid to love you.
Let's both feel better and never let that misery touch us anymore.

This one's called "Running Under Streetlights on a Treadmill Made of Gravel"
Don't you ever wonder where you'd be without love?
There is no distance I wouldn't travel
to be under the arms of this oak.

This one is called "I Ain't Got All Night to Plot with the Moon,"
and this one's called "I'm Losing my Mind in the Middle of June,"
so give me a light, because this dark's ending soon.

I am a scarecrow lost in a tornado
(this one is called "You Can't Keep All of Your Straw.")
I am a glass figure in the midst of a hail storm.
This one is called "Where's my Umbrella?"

And I've found an answer,
so ask me the question.
This one is called "The Supreme and Holy Power of Suggestion"

Some nights are never ending.
This one's called "That Fruit Ain't Worth Eating if the Garden's Not Worth Tending"

So don't you judge me.
My antennae may be broken,
but my signal still sends,
and my mind is wide open.

I look onto the world,
and all that I can see
are tales of woe, success, heroes,
love, loss, pain, and tragedy.

I look back on my life
and see it just the same.
All of it so beautiful,
yet commonplace and plain.

I look onto the world,
and it looks back on me.
All that I can see,
all of it and everything;
nothing more than poetry.

Doomed to forever be concerned with the things that most won't notice - let alone take an interest in.
Fated to state the rules of a game of which most don't know they're playing - whether or not they may be winning.
Always curious.
Ever grasping.
Despairing when they realize that the quest is everlasting.
What is it that makes it thus?
Myself,
the world,
random floating motes of dust.
I'll assign them meaning just to see it fall apart
in the face of a smile.
In the face of indifference.
Caught up in a desperate attempt to recapture one's lost innocence.
A few misplaced words can turn you into just another madman scribbling on the walls.
What keeps it going?
It's the hope that someone,
somewhere,
will understand it all.

I speak in metaphors,
but I feel like I've met you before.
You were what was hiding on the otherside of my door.
You were the canopy at the top of the trees;
Basking in the moonlight.
I tried to climb but I fell on the way up.
You were the branches that broke my fall.
You were the leaves in autumn;
How I tried to catch them all.
You were the one that held me tight.
You were the clouds that cloaked the moon in the middle of the night.
You were all the things that I struggled to see.
You are everything that I want to be.

I play these ballads for no one
To lose myself in it
And right when it's over
Is when I begin it

Now caught in the middle
My mind sits bewildered
Innocent criminal
A guileless sinner

In the between
Fulfilling my dreams
Giving sound to my conscience
Through the touch of these keys

I begin to see it
I start to believe
All of this nonsense
Now I know what it means

Do you remember that time?
My family has a home video of it.
It was my birthday,
and we were little kids,
and there's this moment in it
where we are standing quietly -
Staring at each other
Awkwardly.
You smile and giggle,
and I smile too,
but only a little,
because I'm trying to be still.

When I see it, it's like walking into a time portal.

I remember what I'd said to you.
I remember how I'd felt:
Like everything was moving too fast,
so I asked you for some help.

I said,
"Just stand here a minute. Don't move.
Let's just stand here for a second."

And you did.
And there it is!
Us standing awkwardly right in the midst
of chaotic childhood revelry -but removed from it.

We're like two young souls frozen
forever in a moment that made no sense,
and when I see it,
I long for that first loss of innocence.