Trembling barely contained
the murky coming, concealed
bared in patches, wet and stained
brown and yellow enamel revealed

Steadfast holding, conscience wide awake
ambling threat approaching, towering tall
bowered in the shadow cast, spine-hairs shake
shivering to bow before the shambling presence at all

Eyes meet a second too late
interaction integral, insolate, integrity intact
legs laid out all by the side, infatuate
rest in victory by merely defiance in the act
or instinct, fallacy, to the fatal end, innocence exact
standing in the way, one falls for the lack of knowing
what it means, whether to smile back,
the other is not smiling at all in fact.

The answers are complicated
that doesn't mean the questions are
understanding why can be an impossible task
when it's all too easy to know

Torchbearer, you conduct your sections with such technique
dancing lights, ta chanson sombre, c'est magnifique
all bubbles in the mud cannot make a man of clay
yet on your masterful conception du mal ils sont volés
night encroaching over the border, spilling into day
la nuit sans fin sur nous, sleep you who sit and stay
pas un le malin avec les moutons, sur une perle de sueur tu pries
until even fearful perspiration in the sweltering rain is washed away.

Neo-gilded era of neon lights that torment burning
taking the darkness out of shadows where lost cicadas chitter, lurking
above, one resplendent eye, dizzily always, turning
dry scales, old fangs lay about a serpent admires its naked form
it rises over the chapel and the cloud to bite the dove
now to feel its power surging, in this flesh reborn
with no ribs to cage, no heart-to conscience, to page; no love

Ageless aeons daemons themselves could nary grasp
this posing colossus, beautiful and eternal, shines on
not for worship or admiration, how small it is that tinier they seem
when in its glory they so openly bask
professing, consoling, confiding and watching, knowing it will be there when they are gone
knowing if nothing else is certain, there are many generations still this eyelash will bat upon
hanging there when they are none, as regular every day as the dawn.

Oh, child
you look so disheartened
your hair in knots and eyes full of dreams unrealized
all the space in your head is burning kindling, all smoke and sadness, all rooms occupied

Be like water
which is a key to life, free and fulfilling
never breaking, ever-bending, the ashes you clean from your nails
when you stand again and face the world, knowing your will is never ending

All people are an ocean unto themselves
their depths and intensity as severe
every bit as full of life, ever flowing
and they break off into rivers and streams and falls
which change the land forever, often never knowing
that no one is so dark, so shallow and alone

I want to drown beneath the surface of a human
and love them for what they are, imperfect and dishonest
teeming with faults and bubbles
but I am a troubled wave, crashing and rolling
content to wander the vastness at best
while passing all these glimpses into my own sinking abyss
I follow a star and hope it's enough to lead the weary to rest
oh, child you would have such a different life than this.

Why don't we worship the amygdala, make it sound exotic, start a fever-fire in the tropics, pour ice over the horizon via helicopter, view the mind's eye like a crystalized Shambala, sell entry to inner-peace to create the illusion and wall the dam, there's no concept of reality without a sham, low as the almighty dollar, processed meat behind bars get your necktie pulled through your collar, I've been all over the world from the edge of my seat, I'm what you could call a stay-at-home road scholar

You braggarts, *******, maggots and fascists
politically correct censorship-sailors and catfishes
you politicians and career-victims, you're all slapstick
you talk too much and don't hold water
you bark at false alarms and pet yourselves because even a broken watchdog is right twice a day
and then ignore every other crisis you called all hands on deck to, raised arms to crush in uproarious righteousness like you were the voiceless minority's own private militant flyswatter
everybody has a voice, we're all screaming or sitting in silence, tired and apathetic
I'm going deaf, I've lost it and I can't keep beating this dead hoarse, the whole world has issues, why are we making such a meal out of ourselves like we were the main course
ever since being put in the spotlight when Columbus sailed up onto the wrong shores
you can recite the diddy of fourteen hundred and ninety two, but you know why Native Americans were called Indians is because he set sail for India initially, don't you?
I have little hope the future will even be able to keep the ocean blue

The only thing I learned in school was psychological warfare, every day since I first set foot on those grounds I've taken live rounds and dealt my hand from the bottom because you can bet on the flop life doesn't turn up fair, it's too much to ask for someone else to care, read from a script for drugs, your alcoholic or *** deviant teachers whisper be-wary of thugs, down sleeping pills, painkillers and my daily dose of brain-fire extinguisher with *** from one of those best dad mugs, it never fails that when you go chucking snails, karma turns around and reminds you why you have to watch out for disgruntled slugs

You might catch one with your name on it
slower than you imagined, this grueling dawn hits
the purple of the sky lines up with the shade of skin under your eye
it's like makeup made to match, a tone only being sleepless for so long
or being on the business end of a fist can really catch, unnatural beauty looks so wrong
it's become normal to manufacture sell and lie, be a product, a marketing scheme
wanting to lean into exposure, explode and fracture and leave behind a profitable footprint to follow at the launch site
it's inhuman, to be switched on for twenty four hours, seven days a week, to be a character, it's obscene
and to defend this are small armies, cute little consumers who don't think beyond the opinion placed before them, placemat bib and all
dissent is negativity, disagreement is not normalcy, it's not okay, you're attacking someone who's so important to me, they literally saved my life
insult and rant, sob and bawl
unless you were personally given chest compressions, or they showed up and held your head so you wouldn't swallow your tongue while you OD'd, and then helped you back from suicidal depression
I don't care if you've shared a stage and danced and sang together, all people are equal
and none of them worth what they think they are, good, moot, or evil
so you can waltz up to a celebrity getting into their car, pop them off and become a shooting star

Sit on the curb and crack a spine, the Catcher Murders loosely spun a web and cast a net all through a grimly imagined fascination of mine, what candid activity to activate a conspiracy for an elected representative on who gets to live, give me the nominee for Manchurian candidacy! Violate the vile walls of a small mind's sanctity, the moral composition of even the purest person is only sound in theory, threaten their family, test their temptations, loyalty and mortality, fill their head with supposition, non-disclosure to time of day, information, no exposure to familiarity, turn what they think is false inside out and convince them what was never real was all along a secret reality, watch them break their neck to stare directly into an eclipse like it was their fealty, to disable themselves in service to pushing out of their skin and beyond their own ability

Mind control is simply too powerful to be stopped at a question of whether or not it's ethical
if I wrote this while someone dictated it, with a gun in one hand while they fed me an acid strip
and I knew they had complete deniable culpability, say for example if they worked for the Central Intelligence Agency
and they were abducting citizens from America and Canada, for one big experimental acid trip
to create Whitey Bulger and Ted Kaczynski
I mean, I know everybody hates to hear other people whine, you fall on your knees in thoughts and prayer for or worship on forums shooters like the murderers at Columbine,
when every day someone provokes a loner, outright pressing them to slip into a violent state
I begrudge myself a few hard feelings against people, but I wouldn't **** time to squash my hate
a child with a gun is an adult making bad decisions, the grey area is a lot harder to see when you're sorting through footage of dead children, bullet-torn classrooms haunting your nightly visions
everything is a joke and everyone laughs in the privacy of their own shadow
when their standards in public are much higher, where there's smoke there's not always a real fire
how can you police yourself, live up to the idea of who you think you are right now,
don't look for an answer, go on and say it, how?

Expound upon your idea

I recognize the tired eyes, the fading light, the manic battery and the desperate, clinging plight, that even I am giving up on me, when I look back and see a...
mistake like a tear in the fabric of my old green jacket, I'd pull it apart until I could slip a fist through the eye of the needle needed to repair the damage, the shell I come out of, the truth is I long to bury the hatchet but I've held on to some grudges so long I get within a hair's breadth and then I can't hack it, I take another log for the fire, chop it and stack it
I know peace is an option, I could achieve it and maintain it
but I'm insatiable, there's a volatile pull, there's insecurity in the wiring, my outlet
is draining, it pains me to say
there's something wrong in my brain
that when everything is just fine
it's just not right, that means something is going to go horribly wrong

I don't think I could utilize speech effectively, or write well enough, enough times to ever explain

That I am a button for rock bottom trap-door astonishment,
I am not a glutton for punishment, there's something more that loves to fight and prove your
investment, your time and emotion, is all a waste, I'm a trashcan Adonis in a recycled establishment
I need to prove that no matter what real good I actually do, I am a double negative, there's nothing I can't; I'm no good for you
that's why I circle back around like a confused vulture, pecking at my own living carcass before I go back to ground like an ashamed, sad clown, because I will captain and drown a relationship
I identified love, a necessity, a red flag thread, a wire to a suicide vest that almost set me off
and I cut my own heart out, detonated it, the fuse behind my eyes is a live wire, the sparks don't fly once the dynamite is lit

It all comes down to duality, hypocrisy, evil and me

Mischief, you probably think that means pranks
think in terms of death to the invulnerable, okay, thanks
somehow, you never want to be the way you are
I find with remorse, it waits to bite until things go too far
and these ideas penetrate my thoughts like venom dripping on my head
resulting in the comeuppance, another defeat, loss, personal humiliation, self-appointed proxy-given scar
I try to lie to myself about it all, that I'm going to do better, be better, change, reshape and restructure
when it seems I'm the sliver of a tooth away from sensible goals, a man I can be proud of, a conjecture whirlwind sweeps me with hindsight and conjuncture
preying on the weakest, softest sides of my wounded, pitiful pride, until I need to snap this rope and act like all along my hands were tied
and with no regard or respect, no honorable or honest intentions I will destroy and employ tactics that are somehow meant to reassure me of my reputation
the resulting aftermath which is always beyond the worst of imagination, destroying all realms their bridge and leaving alone one sickly mind with ice in stolen veins, ****** red eyes, hands washed in the void-river of time in gravitation, a creature whose humanity is stored and fired to fill this vainglorious vessel with precious vanity, having deceived all, achieved naught, and bought with its soul, sold on its personality, solely the lie of being a person, hollowed out by devastation, held hostage by its need for attention, in self incarceration, a slave for approval, for validation.

I'm feeling paranoid again
about this real life cone of silence
these close friends of mine
and I suffocate on my instincts, the walls are closing in
when I look for a helping hand I don't know if I'm reaching or
lashing out, I can't tell if this is a fist anymore
I cross my arms and hold myself tight
I can't betray another trust
this fear is the poison that cyclically excuses my vitriolic behavior
I will sweat it out cold turkey, until I drench the bone
hobbled and still standing, emerging,
an addict to the mischief that alienates me, I love the conflict
and hate myself for it, social anxiety riddles me, how do I overcome self-destruction alone?