Disillusioned youth all drunk on ideas of change,
passing around their ideals until we all felt the same,
or felt better about not feeling the same,
or felt normal by being surrounded by people even farther from normal than we'd ever claim to be ourselves,
or felt like we were in a safe space for the first time in our lives,
a space in which we could actually be ourselves,
or felt as if the weight of the world thrusted on our shoulders by our parents was no longer a burden we had to bear alone,
or felt sane enough for the first time in awhile to recognize how much we'd actually grown,
to have sorted out all of the ******* from the things we'd always claimed to have known.

God bless 'em, every one.

Oh, how we've grown.

Love is not dependency.
Love is not some broken-hearted teen crying,
"You were the only thing that ever completed me,"
in the middle of the street during a full moon in which all the willows weep or whatever.

Whatever love is, it's surely not that.

Love is not a scam.

Love is not crying when you could've laughed.

In fact, love is the exact opposite of that.

Left to my own devices,
I go to places that aren't very nices.
But you believe in a spectrum of sorts.
One I used to live on before I blew it all to bits.
Sometimes I wonder what the incentive is;
The reason why I keep you arounded.
Times like these, I see what it means.

You're my canary.

You keep me grounded.

Sometimes, I feel too old and cynical to appreciate the beauty of anything anymore, and it's times like these I'm tempted to walk around at night with headphones on and listen to that one song from Blonde Redhead with the heavy piano and ah's as the only lyrics.

If you know how a spell is cast,
all the magic words to incant it and such,
does it have less of an effect when it's cast on you?
Does is matter much?

It's being swollen by a feeling that you can't put into words,
but you try to anyway.

It's something to look back on in later days,
which is today,
a day that ends in a night in which you feel the same way.

It's a guiding arrow through the maze you've made inside your mind,
the one that in theory,
will end with you finding yourself.

Contrary to what you may be thinking,
I am not a contrairian.
I like to play Angel's Counsel to your Devil's Advocate, but not just because I've been drinking.
(Though, to be fair, I have been, but forgive me. I'm celebrating.)
Anything worth debating always has two sides.
Try seeing them both for a change before dividing the lines.
And while it may sound contradictory at times, and doesn't end in a rhyme,
just meet me in the middle, *******!