F

Press F to pay respects.
The player caught feelings.
And now he's in a different game.
One with no real prizes,
Not this round anyway.
Racecar or top hat?
He picked his pieces
Landed in jail,
Just to please a woman
Who never had feelings to begin with.
He lost the game
Lost his freedom
Lost his mind
Press F to pay respects.

Its nights like these that are my favorite.
When I’m sitting next to you
and your leg is rubbing mine,
while you play your new game
and I play on my computer.
But we aren’t ignoring each other.
On the contrary.
Each muscle is aware of your skin on mine
and your breathing has matched my own.
While we each pick songs that we grew up with
talking about the part of our life that they impacted.
Even ten years later,
there’s so much about you that I want to know.

Is there a goal plan for how many miles to run
Before I don't hate seeing myself naked?
Do the months I pay for a gym membership
Get cashed in for a few more nights of feeling worthy
than I normally have?
Is there a sports bra to hold in the cravings?
Or even just to do what its designed to.
I never really understood sports bras.
What diet do I need to go on
so that I can love myself again?

They say the silence is awkward
when it consumes an entire room.
But the thoughts are almost palpable.
I'm surprised no one has noticed sooner.
Thoughts of inequity.
Fear of rejection.
A concious sedation of self loathing and envy.
Faces running on auto pilot
in the few moments before everyone reaches for their phone
to drown out the quiet.
You can hear the girls comparing thighs
and hair
and dresses
because although we know the media is a generous artist
of flaws for the human form
we still worry that they are right about us.
Guys watching every twitch of lips
and fingertips
half of the room wants to scream
while the other half wants to run
but everyone is confused as to why.
Awkward silence is preferable, though,
to deadened conversation.
The ones where we mention the economy
or the war
or the friend that died last week
and no one knows if it was really an accidental suicide.
Where we paint a picture of bleak servitude
and lament our meager lots
So we stay quiet
except for the dinging of phones
until its time to go home
so that we can study for school
and get a degree that we think we have to have.
If only someone would question
just how much pieces of paper
dictate our lives
Money
Degrees
Concert tickets.
But no.
We all just linger
in the Awkward Silence.

The drugs have given me a piece of mind
An artificial calmness.
I firmly believe that they are not making me better
They haven't changed my brain chemicals to cope
They haven't cured my depression
They've sugar coated it
With artificially flavored banana
Which is the worst kind of flavor
So now I look at the world
And everything is pastel yellow
There's color now, so that's cool I guess.
But I think the various shades of black and grey
Were preferable to this manufactured apathy
And sure, its better than burning rage
that made me afraid of looking in the mirror
But is mediocrity really the life I'm to live?
How much of a choice do I have?
My emotions are like a sneeze that just won't happen
Where everything is on pause until I scream and clear the air
I am tolerable when I've taken my pills
And I guess its the better option
Than being too tired to want to die.

I'm that age that suicide comes up in casual conversation.
One half of the room thinks its selfish.
The other half are dead.
I'm that age that your doctors don't give a ****.
Because all the 20 somethings are healthy.
Except the ones that aren't.
I'm that age when my parents want grandkids.
Me too Mom, but life is funny like that, I guess.
I'm that age that all my friends are drunk or depressed.
But most of the time its both.
And we are toeing the line of fun and alcoholism.
I'm that age when I should get a better job.
But the job wants experience.
Which is why I need the job.
I'm that age that is responsible for killing the radio store.
And chain restaraunts
And literally everything else that I can't afford
So who cares if its dead?
I'm that age stuck in the honeymoon phase.
But the honeymoon phase wasn't great to begin with.
And God forbid that it ever ends.
I'm that age that shows up in all the statistics.
Ya know, the ones about failing marriages
Single parents with no idea who the father is.
Or another name written in black, carved into a headstone.
I'm that age that I never expected to survive to.
So now I'm confused.
What was I supposed to do
when 18 came and I was still alive?
I barely saw sixteen, and I have to do this for 50 more years.
I'm that age that knows how to set up my elderly neighbor's Facebook
but I can't figure out how to save enough money
That I won't end up homeless if I come down with cancer.
I'm that age that has a plethora of information at my fingertips,
the musings of Socrates and the masterpieces of Mozart.
But I watch 6 second videos because my attention span was stolen
by the drugs I was put on
to sit still in class so I could learn about paralellograms.
I'm that age that I'm supposed to have my **** together.
But honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing.
Just trying to make it to Friday,
so I can drink away the mistakes I've made.
I guess I'm just at that age.

We're a world and generation set on depersonalization
Where everything is on social media but everyone is scared to socialize.
We all promise we "just need to vent" but is it venting or is it depression?
"He loves me, he's just tired. Its not abuse, she's just tired. I'm not okay, I'm really tired."
We all need to stop and chill without the help of benadryl.
But we need the drugs to feel normal.
A normal that they tell us to be
on the covers of our magazine
When we are all medicated to achieve the status quo
We can't learn from our mistakes if we can't remember them.
Instead of dealing with the guilt,
we soak in a bath as if the lavender suds will rinse away our ****** personality
We do it nightly and call it self care.
And the self care we really need is lunch that isn't Oreos and to join therapy.
We fill the empty hole inside of us with cigarettes and ***** and food
And we don't even know we're empty because our parents are empty too
And the only ones who can recognize the absense
Are the same ones telling us to work harder to buy our first house and car before the age of 25
When really, we haven't even settled on what we want to be when we grow up
Our grandparents and parents beg us to have babies because "I'm not getting any younger."
But I'm quickly getting older Dad, so shut up and let me drink until I pass out without worrying about how much my child will have to heal from, just like I'm healing now with Bacardi 151.
Its a cycle and there's no handle bars
Celebrities writing songs and movies, a fill-in-the-blank series that mimics a horoscope
To drag in the masses with feelings of unity when really we have no idea what our brother went through when we were laying on our uncle's bed at midnight at 5 years old.
They want us to be the same except for when its not convenient, and suddenly the children of rich people are to be scorned but they hate the black people who hate the black rich people
And its another cycle, the chain popped off and the brakes are our feet
Just like when we were kids except now we have no shoes on and we are rolling down a hill that stops at a lake
And our empty parents forgot to teach us how to swim.
Its 2019 now, when will  America be great in the first place?