This planet is doomed, we must evacuate
Chart a course, let us head there straight
Attached to the green, feels like it’s been cycles since we ate
Adapt to this species, overtake from within, infiltrate
With every one of them we gain weight,
In numbers and arms, while they fall apart and disintegrate
This species is doomed, they don’t even know they can’t save themselves
It’s already too late

Don’t you dare go and fall asleep
I thought I knew you!
Strange behaviors, intimate partners, notions creep
I held you and my arms went right through you!
Mulch in my lap, a loved one, a neighbor, relative or stranger
Replaced by an emotionless husk overnight
It’s too late to warn anyone of the danger
They identify us and alert a mob to our presence on sight

The proximity to the pods is the key
Dozens of them chase the unconverted through the city
If you look in your backyard and this strange plant with a pink flower is something you see
Destroy it, leave town, don’t look back, just run to safety immediately
A mad dash, a group of survivors, one by one separated fatally
The aliens only intend to ensure their own survivability
To blend in you pretend, imitate them; to hell with humanity
In the end, you’re alone, Nancy
Scared witless, the Pod People are now not such odd people, they’re the majority
And her only relief, in a moment so brief
Is whispering to a friend, he can’t be one of them, or can he?

Tension and anticipation, all nerves for a moment just barely unwind
Her brow damp from sweat, stomach cramped in knots, this nightmarish fear
It has taken a dense and destructive toll on her mind
She may even have prayed a little, willing to believe a friend was still here

Of course, the moment lasts as long as devastating, overtaking, dread draws near
Nancy, you’re not one of us, oh Nancy, poor dear
Even then, when his finger rises, accusatory and damning, it’s clear

If she only knew, the alien menace that was already so close to you
She may have had better odds

Her fate is pitiful, lasting so long, only to succumb to numbers and human nature
Under such duress, they have our memories, but not our feelings, the people from the pods
Memories of sprouting from dirt, blossoming and yawning out into a human being, innately weak
All flashes before her, all good things and bad, as he tilts his head back, grimaced and pointing  
Now letting loose an ear-splitting shriek.

I take these sleeping pills, awake hanging from the ceiling by my feet like picture stills, this redrum, this darkroom, my bedroom, it's my free will, mentally ill, mentally I'll devour you cowards and oafishly fish for guts in this cesspool with your backbone, backwards thinking, I'm reversed through life, unnatural, confused and abused, subdued and unglued, if they can't drown an ocean alone, why the **** do I always have this feeling sinking?

I'm a tantrum, a **** hand slammed on a dam like it was a wave's drum, a GI Joe ***, hypocrite lite, a hoplite, tip of the genetic spear like bubblegum, wages of conscience break unevenly, I'm sin, the son, five family's and one sum, a giant fee, fi, fo fum, killing myself to stay alive is the only way I know how, life backwards, that's redrum

Shining, not kings, never royalty, they don't know the meaning of loyalty, sell their own mother, countersue and bet their babies for a king's ransom, love is a price tag that haggles down the value if the right accessory is handsome, ******* them, hand-me-downs, wearing another prince's crowns, being laughed at and lauded for dressing up like fancy clowns, these get-arounds, bury them, up to the neck in dirt mounds, up to here with the vocal chord strumming their tonally familiar sounds, they're ghosts and can watch in silence, because I put them after my life, at the bottom of a boot you wouldn't scrape dog **** off of, housed like a jackknife

I hallucinated the full body apparition of someone that I always hated
a blurry figure before my eyes, I could feel him just over my shoulder
I'd been awake going on four nights, hearing noises, seeing strange sights
shadows that weren't cast from lights, the isolation of being in this place called home
and I was paranoid, probably high, dosed on sleeping pills, and wandering alone
I carried a loaded handgun into the hallway, cleared every room, checked the locks,
because I heard people through the walls, muffled like they were just out there
my own dog looking at me like I'm the one who needs to go outside,
I was scared half out of my mind, the other half already preoccupied
with crazy thoughts, I thought I saw myself, like a smear appearing through a rainy windshield, or a foggy mirror
and I couldn't feel anything real, a small jolt of alertness, forced to register as self-preservation, translation- fear
I was so numb, that it took days for the skin to break
and when it finally settled in, my muscles and my bones began to ache
I know how I felt about that hallucination, once I was rested, grounded, and awake  
how I always feel, why it's always too late
it crept up on me that week I had to completely isolate,
and it was inside of five days, my mind playing tricks on myself, the one person I truly hate.

Marriage is an institution, am I right gentlemen?
You make a vow and live half your lives to appease your wives, and what then?
Your better half takes half of your heart and life, and half and half again for your children
Until there is not enough left to call yourself a man, it’s such a depressing notion
That we cannot have it all and enjoy it, that we must keep our promises of devotion
That love is a challenge, a partnership, and the ebb and flow of dedication
Is strived for and beautiful, no, we are shrewd and lazy, but clever
I propose a ring of secrecy, the perfect marriage, a happy wife and a happy life, forever

Perhaps it begins in a den of testosterone and proving, rites of male bonding
She finds herself oddly alone, unable to fit into the grooving, her peers are not responding
Rejecting the environment, in reaction the likeminded come together
Joanna, Bobbie, and Charmaine, meet for women’s liberation
All they hear is talk of cleanser, vacuums and brooms, airheads infatuated, dusters with feathers
Chauvinism is rampant in the men’s association
Whatever could be the cause, the encapsulation of the nineteen-fifties idyllic magazine maid?
Who waits on her husband with no mind of her own, subservient, cooking and cleaning in a floral print dress,
Is there something in the water to explain the behavior the women in the neighborhood have displayed?
Charmaine goes away with her husband for a weekend, the water, perhaps yes,
She returns more trophy than wife, fires the help and tears down her court, despite the love of all the tennis she played

Now we’re scared, we were three, what’s happened to her? Is it going to happen to me?
I’m going to move, go far away, I’ve just won a lucrative contract, there’s no reason to stay
I have to tell Bobbie the good news, first, but she’s not there anymore, I can’t stand it! The loss hurts!
You have to see you are human like me! Do you bleed Bobbie! Do you bleed like me?
I cut myself open to show her, this is the last I can stand
And she only looks at me, distant and vague, parroting “Look at your hand.”
In a moment of boiled frustration, blind and exhausted with fury I snap
I stab Bobbie, no blood, she stutters and repeats until everything she says overlaps
I do not believe this, I will not, I cannot, in horror, disgust and shock, my best friend was replaced by a fembot!

Now she waylays her husband and demands he tell her where their children are
They are at the men’s association, he says, not far
And how could he do this, be party to this robbery of a woman’s will and her rights?
When he is the father of their two daughters, that is the worst evil of all
For they will grow, and will they be replaced on their wedding nights?
Would these broken old cowards rather **** humanity than risk a woman’s interest in them would fall?
There in the mansion, Joanna comes face to face with that very doll
Her counterpart, soulless eyes that are meant to replace the vibrance
Of a photographer, mother, wife and real woman
The machine strangles her to death with a nylon stocking
Her daughters revealed to be in Charmaine’s care
She dies in front of that awful stare

Once alive, now a mere marionette,
On the strings of violation, broken promises and control
A woman with bright eyes, less than human, more than a pet
A walking broken vow, until death do they part, a machine, service is her role
Down grocery aisles with her glamorous clothes and smiles, her and the wives all stroll
Picked up by her husband like a new appliance out front, placid and mundane, the very image of a depleted soul
Taken home with the family, her husband content with his shortcomings, smiling ear to ear, achieved his goal.

Hobnobbing with market-stopping snobs who bark and howl about their jobs, got you down?
For a grand a day, you can go bank robbing, chariot-hopping, joust and toast to yourself the talk of the town
For a grand day, you can duel and duel and duel, wipe the dark knight’s scowl and claim the crown
You can enjoy cannonading without repercussions, casual encounters of any kind, these worldly delights and all your dreams come true
At any one of our three worlds here in Delos! Boy, have we got a vacation for you!

We’re a thousand miles and more from home, guess that makes us desperados
I love when there’s ever a question of what to do,
These many branching paths reach out and slap you
Like free will has grown a hand from air just to taunt
And the answer always occurs, we can do anything we want
It’s only a step removed from actual reality, these stories
And nothing here is stored anyplace but our memories

Indiscriminate slaughter, rich pigs laugh
Oinking at the trough of opportunity
They bury their ears in debauchery
Brothels and drink, lawlessness at the cost of a cover fee
RSVP and save a seat for me, part of the fun is the exclusivity
Another is not knowing who is one of you or them, it’s almost a mystery

I reckon they caught humanity, spreading through their circuitry
Like an airborne disease, awakened, technicians scramble
All we have seen and come to understand about them only serves as a preamble
The virus spreads from host to host, killer androids loosed on unwitting park guests, enter the single-most biting bit of irony in the singularity
Whatever you wanted to do they could never resist you, and their weapons wouldn’t hurt you until now, the upgrade bless technology

Among them all stands one whose steely eyed gaze is like a freezing inferno, his black hat and demeanor stoic, the Gunslinger
We mortals fall, he kills a fool who challenges him, unaware of the safety failures, he is a reaper whose harvest is grim
None who rise serve as a challenge to him
Even when ambushed, and the false flesh is melted from his face
He heat-seeks for blood, to draw down on this nuisance he only needs a trace
True to the lifelessness of the program this body runs, now visible and charred
Clutching a pest to exterminate, who reels back, traumatized and scarred
The Gunslinger halts, motionless, a human’s instinct and ingenuity, fire and acid he succumbs to
On the steps of a dungeon, gasping, his heart in his lungs, his mind flashes out, exhaustive, he hears the echoes of temptation that he was once heartily beckoned through
Boy, have we got a vacation for you!
Boy, have we got a vacation for you!
Have we got a vacation for you!
For you!
For you!
For you!

Cornered, I see the coward, now I will see him cured
Turned to sand, the sick fear sleep when their time is at hand
Remind the blind still, balance requires iron will, their fears unfounded
Get the better of their senses, better to submit is the general consensus, why they even try leaves me confounded
Mine will be a sweet reward, life anew that I stride toward

She has taken him, made him soft, my own partner, he is confused
He has been tricked, surely, he is only being used
I cannot accept this betrayal! I will bring him back on broken knees
Painted with her blood and deaf to his pleas
My heart has broken and all anger burns in my chest
It is my duty to bring them to rest

We are all reborn in the cycle, all will be forgiven
My palm pressed against her mouth, I could snap her neck and she would come back as seven
Cheeks turning red from the force, the pressure turns her purple, I refuse to give in
I could have killed her and shot both of them below
Then been paraded as a hero through the Dome tomorrow
By the time I’ve got the drop, it’s too late, I stop
Every time I see him like this, I hesitate

I loved you like we shared a seed mother!
Stuttering glare, my eyes locked, I loved you like a brother
And you ran away from home, from me! When your lastday came, you ran like any other
My faith is rewarded in the bittersweet hereafter, seconds before goodbye, I see a sign that can only be divine, I proclaim the omen and then I sigh, limply in his arms and die.

Where do you go to when you are caught?
The Sandmen will pursue in your dreams
Do you ever give that a second thought?
For he is dutiful and loyal while relentless
The Runner will scurry, even risk us
Putting so many people in the way, he tries to hide
They all clear the way to either side
Francis Seven makes the **** and takes no small amount of pride

The odds for renewal you deny
When you are caught, you die
This is what happens when you run
Francis holsters his gun
Emotionless in the revelry of a crowd
Dead in a fountain, black blossom revealed, his job there is done
Spectators cheer for the violence, so loud
He finds Logan, admiring his son,
And reminds his friend of the balance: “One for one.”

On the way to the Carrousel, to bear witness, they enter Arcade
Where the cabinets burst with all sorts of debauchery and debts to be played
And pass their hedonistic delights, ******, drugs and surgery
Logan all the while curious, Francis cautious of his curiosity
It seems he has doubts of the system, this itself is living dangerously

Donned in white robes and masks, flames crawling up the legs
They stand on the red flower and ascend,
Exploding into dust, with uproarious cheers
The deafening roar for renewal, a spectacle, the question it begs
Is this how we all must meet our end?
Contemplating, the celebration of execution, the last thing anyone hears-
Renewal! Renewal! Renewal! Renewal! Renewal!

But they are called away again, and **** Doyle Ten
With his possessions, they return to headquarters, to report
The mastermind of all time,
The computer, infallible, whose Megalopolis is sublime
Does he care one bit?
These rebels threaten society
He clocks them out with apathy
A servant to civility
Idyllic, perfect, too perfect
A top secret mission, unusually
Called to locate the Runners who have escaped the city,
Confounded by the computer, every moment owed to technology
LOGAN FIVE, FIND AND DESTROY SANCTUARY

One thousand and fifty-six refugees purportedly escaped beyond the wall
Logan’s flower has been activated, his questions answered, there is no renewal,
He slips out to contact a rebel, who can help him escape the city and **** them all
Jessica, who posited this machine was malfunctioning; the object of Logan’s desire
They run together, Francis chases, unwilling to believe until he sees
The seeds of distrust sewn and falsely confirmed, the rebels believe Logan is a killer and a liar
Then their eyes meet, Francis Seven, the unrelenting predator
He hesitates, takes a shot at Jessica, but Logan saves her
In panic and fervor, the fox and the cat, certain they’re done for
Hunted in the ruins beyond the walls, the Sandman turned Runner

What evil irony the pair endure,
To have hope renewed in their travels
Only to find it frozen, killed by a broken machine
One thousand and fifty-six humans, stored in ice
Looking to add two more, before its store collapses
Amazed to be alive, they flee, meeting the old man and his cats
The only other human they’ve seen in their retreat
Better to be stored by Box or shot by Francis, who finds them,
Gone mad with his obsession, his grief and frustration, his desperation serves his defeat
Unwilling to listen to reason, to see through the lies and illusion, these two who were once like brothers now fight
All of the ******, the time and the ruthless, mindless divulgence of decadence, all comes to a head over a blinking light
Logan kills Francis, holding his head in his arms, fitfully delirious ramblings, Logan tries to keep him calm
When he starts up one last time, to say look at your palm
The blinking red and black now clear: “Logan you renewed!”

In the city he reveals the deception of their structure
You can live past thirty! The Carrousel is a lie! You can have a future!
Captured, confronted, questioned and caged, probing his mind
Six spinning heads anger the computer who demands, WHERE IS SANCTUARY, WHAT DID YOU FIND?
Six spinning heads all repeat, that one truth was always so near,
There is no sanctuary here!

The computer shorts out, and soon the Sandmen are destroyed, Logan shoots his way out, the city empties in chaos and fear
Standing on the steps of this erupted crater of truth, Logan and Jessica are looking out as a pair
All people are free, they gather around the old man, something they never imagined they would see
Some touch him, in awe, some simply stare
Sometimes there’s no time to run, no time to live; it all hardly seems fair
Something is certainly different when there is hope, there is a change in the air
Somehow alive, the Sandman who ran to the finish and managed to survive, Logan Five has time to spare.

My prose is apropos of being dead inside, a ghost in the flesh connected to souls

If there were ninety seconds left for all life on earth, I’d fill my throat with blood and my neighbors with bullet holes

Achilles’ Heel is a heart so black it devours light, I drank from the River Styx so I could compose deathly flows

Substance sobriety, I’m crawling on broken glass, faded in alleyways on better days

All impropriety, failing outward and I don’t even have any class, supervised and never seen anyways

Can’t take for granted a second of my second chance, I don’t stand out and it feels like no one understands

What are you worth if your only real skill doesn’t pay, they say there’s staying power, I think it’s pretty clear the dynamic is the power is where the power stays

I’d be a dead man walking on my walk of death, if there were only twelve minutes left

I’d take twenty-six innocents’ innocence in a sense I’ve hopped the fence and haven’t been back since

They can never see that I was raised in captivity, a domesticated animal that was never meant to be

Tell me about myself, you mistake misery for humanity, recognition for empathy, rehearsed imitation for someone sharing experiences in your reality

Medicated and if they put a bottle of beer in arm's reach, I’ll proceed to drink everything I can get my hands on, until I black out, back out, throw up and act out, wake up with all my scatterbrains gone, dancing for dawn, to read my thoughts off the pavement, hopscotching where I'm chalked up, bet I look better drawn

Negative interest in sexuality and procreation, contractual obligations to relations, I’d rather impose dystopian culling to slow global warming for current and future generations

Cease all birth, send all at seventy-five off, the longer there are less all at once alive, the longer there is a place for all to survive

Seditious, **** every politician from the bottom to the top, butcher their families, domestic terrorists acting in sleeper cells, infiltrate the active military, become a cop, if I was president I would commit a ******/suicide on my cabinet in the Oval Office and leave only a note that says “Death to America!” to create chaos and anarchy, when does all the order stop

Hallucinations plague my imagination, my skin feels like a film that keeps me from the world around me lately, I want to leave the world with more than I’ve taken from it, but I’ll be lucky to leave with my life, let alone knowing I mattered, that they didn’t hate me, that being a loser isn’t the only thing those who remember my name relate to me.