I see how white light startles.
I snapped a pic and she spun in circles.
She wanted a photograph
to cover her mother's epitaph,
so she could have a laugh.

She smoked to get away -
but this isn't what'd she say,
exhaling, "All we are is carbon
and a lack of empathy."

We blended into hues of
microwave dinners
and church alters.
I used to tell her to go
just to halt her.

We prayed to get away -
but that's not what we'd say,
whispering, "Help us be more
than carbon and a lack of empathy."

Crashing on top of my bed,
I'll just lay down for a second
while in the middle of doing something important;
fully clothed,
light still on,
door wide open.
Beautiful dreams of madness.

Thirty different versions
of the same kind of person.
I'm sick of repetitious conversation,
so go on and call me pretentious.
I always find grounds for contention
when it comes to dealing with this thirty-fold type of predictable person.
It's just not worth it!

Now I'm the one who's wrong,
because I've heard your whole life played out
in a four and a half minute long song.
Just let three more foreshadowed words fall from your tongue,
and I swear to god,
I'm gone.

I know when you're young
surviving seems contingent on donning a disguise,
but I've spent the second half of my life learning how to take it off.
Meanwhile, yours has only become more latched on;
to the point where your true face and the fake are one.
All you've got left is that gaudily painted on expression.
I swear to god,
I'm done.

Filled out this application but left all the questions unfinished.
Been swimming with schools of fish bitten by sharks;
how our numbers have diminished.
This much closer to being fired but never been farther from quitting.
Spitting phlegm during my best attempts to explain it to them;
It spills out like this:

Shook a forsaken frame just to sustain the complex game being played in order to maintain some sort of constant.
Consistently bombarded with confrontations to the stasis of each and every escapist mentality.

Virtual reality narcissism.

I'll start making sense just as quick as I learn to deal with it.
Whatever that may be.
Seems our plight is nothing more than to forever search for an answer that fits.

"I don't go to any university.
I'm a student of the Universe.
Life is my major."

"Life's a wave man.
You just gotta ride it.
Try to hang ten."

"The gnarliest of rides tend to be the most radical."

"That guy's caught in a riptide.
He's trying to fight the current,
but all's he gotta do is swim to the side."

"Sometimes a wave will crash and smash you against the shore,
and you get cut up by the shells and sand,
but you can't give up.
Just gotta get back out there and try to ride again."

"Save your highways and byways.
I'm a roadside diner where everything is served Sunny Side Up."

What are you doing right now?
Take a step outside yourself to analyze the value of it.
Supersede the meaning of the thing that you think you currently need.
Pick up that instrument.
Open that word document.
Pick up that pen and turn to a blank page.
Action and passion keeps the ennui away.

What are you up to right now?
What are you doing today?
Punch laziness in the face and stay in that place of outpouring.
Streams of consciousness leaking out from outer space.
I've been bitten by something suddenly.
It's time to create.

Shower that page.
Crowd that silent place with echoes of notes.
Paint every blank surface with earnest strokes of rage.
Climb that asymptote.

If you dig deep,
you'll pull up something.
Even in sleep,
there's no such thing as nothing.

Art for art's own sake.
Because progress takes so many steps.
Oblivion can wait.
It's time to create.

I'd like to lie and say that I have never
held affection for anyone.
That I watch people come and go as they always do,
and that I remain indifferent.
Let the story tumble from my chapped lips,
and tangle with the burning air of my stuffy room.
Because it is dangerous to care,
unspoken thoughts mesh unconsciously-
and I do not care for that.
To watch some one you thought
Trustful strangle your neck
with the very promises you made?
I do not care for that.
Alas, I have done this most dangerous thing-
Became attached.
It is a deadly tango with Hope and Fate.
One is always stealing you away from the other,
promising that your life will work itself out.
But, ever so naively- I have grown attached.
For the times I have loved are far and few between.
But when they arise, they burn in
what I think is my heart- engulfing me,
persuading me to stay.