Stop it.
Just stop.
It's never really been that bad.
From the way you carry on,
I've got it in my head:
You're only happy when you're sad.

I can feel it in my bones.
I can feel it in my teeth.
Emanating from some place buried deep underneath.
I can hear it in your words.
I can taste it on your lips.
Electricity,
recharged by your kiss.
My body is a conduit.
A key tied to a kite string.
I'm thinking of every wish I've wasted on pennies never spent.
Hopes and dreams thought up then tossed.
They're all coming true tonight.
I found my way while staying lost.

Why do you only say it when you're drunk?
If you can't say it otherwise, then I'd rather you not
say it
at all
EVER!
Save your kisses and hugs.
It doesn't mean nearly as much.
It doesn't mean a thing.
Don't expect me to believe it.
You're full of ****.

Oceans deep,
and seas do swell.
How will we ever survive ourselves?

Fell into chasms devoid of light.
Provided a ladder to climb our way out.

No one ever asked for life,
but given what we've got,
we're obliged to make it right.

So send me a soul with its pieces awry.
I'll find a place for my own as I try to assemble these feelings into some sort of grace.
Break us again and I'll chalk it up to an obscure determination of fate.

I never asked for any of this.
Please send help.
Give me some bliss.
I'm drowning myself.
Come rescue me, quick.

All of my quests have left me diminished.
Leave it to me to start what I can't finish.
On to the next one to pick up the reigns.
We've only got so long before we're driven insane.

Bloodied noses.
Smeared makeup.
Reckless abandon.
Don't care where I wake up.

I danced.
I think I lost my ****.
I'm sorry you had to see that.
I'm over it.

Where'd I leave my shirt?
When did I get so harried?
Why am I covered in dirt?
Who did we bury?

panic attack.
Panic Attack!
PANIC ATTACK!!!

Foamed at the mouth.
Spat out several teeth.
Are we humans,
or animal beings?!

*****.
Swallowed it . . .
came back.
PANIC ATTACK!!!

I ate all the prettiest flowers in your garden.
Sorry about that.
I wanted to digest beauty.
Turn it to ****.
How's my breath?

***** fingernails.
Tobacco stains.
Coughs and gasps.
Phantom pains.

Who did I what?
How am I where?
Did I just now ******* . . .
fall up the stairs?
Why did you go?
I'm still wrong here.

Silly silly silly silly silly silly girl.
Don't talk to me;
your voice destroys my world.

I've been repeating rhymes since 1989.
Writing my letters backwards - still can't draw a straight line,
but I could paint you a pretty picture of a troubled prince.

I wasn't old enough at the time,
but I've been partying like it's 1999 ever since.

Doing what I can just to feel more alive,
because I've always had trouble sleeping at night,
so I look for adventure wherever I can find it.
I've gotten lost a few times but can't say that I mind it.

When the things I've picked up along the way come back to stake their claim;
I fight it.
I'll be alright.
I purge.
I writhe.
I write.

I've been recycling lines since 2009,
but getting more sleep ever since I lost my mind.
Almost two halves closer
to achieving half-remembered dreams,
but can only imagine where I'll be come 2019.

I know the best plan is to go to bed,
but waking up tomorrow just fills me with dread.
Time is an illusion, and now never ends,
but with indulgences, I can pretend
that tonight could end with some kind of punctuation.

Sum it all up within a single sentence.
Exclamations and question marks the X of the equation.
Narrated in a literary sense.
Life imitates art animating life inspired by metaphorical interpretations of unexplained phenomena.
I felt it all in a single wave of interconnected particles.

Pulled apart, but each piece responding to the other with common stimuli.
All of my atoms are secretly whispering to each other:
One day,
he is going to die.

Third round on Thursday and waiting for hearse day.
Rehearsed for this moment;
Forgot what I was gonna say.
She says it's all the same but in a different way.

"Styles are incarnations of something that stays constant."
I disagreed with it and caused an upheaval.
They said I'm no good,
I told them I'm evil.
Often the devil takes hold of my tongue.
Stringing words together in a way that feels fun:
Astonished five flowers with burgundy scents.
Fell to the floor in a fit of nonsense.
"are you okay?"
That's an understatement.
Just give me four minutes to be born again.

All these nights of "fun."
I'd gladly trade them in for quiet ones spent with you.
We could cancel all our plans with friends
to stay in bed reading-
Just us two.

It's not your fault.
It's not your fault.
It's not your fault.

I get drunk, then I get weird.
It's kind of what I do.
Sometimes,
I'm weird when I'm sober too,
but only around those who never do.
Get drunk, is what I mean.
I deal with them best when I'm hungover;
Half-awake and half-asleep.
Maybe it'll be easier when I'm older. It's true:
I'm filled with doubt and dreams,
and hung up on memories that I can't keep,
but that's nothing new.

Sleep with a few of them,
then ignore the rest.
Send late night text messages that read:
"I like hanging out with you the best."
When in their company, speak in your own language.
Get drunk and lament how no one understands you.
Cry often.
Cry all the time.
When they offer you a shoulder,
act as if it's a crime.
Push them away.
Tell them you just want to be left alone.
Don't reply to their invites.
Don't answer your phone.
Unless you're in a crowd,
then stay glued to that thing.
If they play your favorite song,
do not sing.
If they buy you a drink,
don't buy them one back.
If they give you advice,
then go on the attack.
It's easy to lose all of your friends
once you've become a sociopath.

Hear me two twelves and I've displaced my shirt.
Pollinated four elves with crystallized dirt.
Syllables betray what a symbol is worth.
Twenty metaphors plus five ****** make three kinds of birth.

Crease in a place where no grease can escape.
Forty times corduroy equals one face.
Applied nine seasons to spice up the taste.
Cardboard ate silicone then left in great haste.

I know that these words don't make any sense.
The greater cost of my mind has already been spent.
Somewhere between Easter and the beginning of Lent.
Jesus Christ threw a fit when I couldn't pay rent.

Caved in on the heads of the poor in a mine.
They'll eat it as long as it's in common time.
This line is just filler to set up the last rhyme,
but **** that ****;
I'm a nonconformist.

I always wanted to be good at everything.
Who doesn't?
I was egotistical enough to cling to the notion that one day, I would.

I dabbled in the arts.
Concocted my potions.
Ran experiments.
Made love when I could.
I calculated numbers.
Explored the ocean,

But my favorite hobby was always psychology.
My first case study being my mother.

There's nothing deeper than the depths of human emotion,
or the correlation of what one life means to another.

64,500 words have never meant so much.
Read enough books and you'll find your out of touch.
The rest of them can't know what it's worth.
They don't read enough.

I've been meaning to reread A Brave New World.
Something haunts me about the ending.
Between slaying lions for loved ones and belts of contraceptives,
I've taken on a whole new perspective.

*** without love,
and love dismissed with ***.
In high school I thought this world would be best,
but all of a sudden, it's happened too fast.

I used to relate to Bernard,
with his inferiority complex,
but now I fear I'm just like John;
one day my feet will swing from the north,
to the east,
south,
and then west.

Sadistic Queen,
how are you so mean?
Your punches are subtle,
but leave me with internal bleeding.

I love the way it stings.

Bring me another poisoned fruit from your tree.
Make my stomach ball tighter than a white-knuckled fist.
Hit me again,
you beautiful bruiser.
I've never before felt a pain such as this.

You are a *******'s *******.
Take one step closer and I swear, I'll scream.
****** ****** doesn't even hold a candle
to this twisted, grisly, nightmarish scene.

It's almost more than I can handle.
Stop it.
Stop it!
You're hurting me!

Got it.
Don't you get it?
I'm gonna overthink it,
but I've got to keep it going
while the getting is hot.

Got the feeling she don't know it.
Now I've gotta show it.
She gets the underlining meaning of everything that I have thought.

Fought through thirty memories I swear I had forgot.
She gets it and she gets me
and now these feelings just won't stop.

In her eyes I'm not reflected as anything that I am not.
Got a funny feeling that she's stealing all these lines straight from the heart.

We gave it all to be forgotten by the ones we chose to love,
but I got you and you got me:
Together,
we'll rise above.

"Everyone's dying, but we're doing it faster."

241 and I'm almost done.
Drink until the sun comes up.
Making room for two with one.
More is never quite enough.

Drain it down then get filled up.
I felt empty til you showed up.
Energized now,
I'll try my luck.

"Hey girl, do you wanna F*?"

Chances are good that she's already lost.
A reputation precedes her: strange washed-out drunk,
but those eyes are amazing;
I wrote about them once.
I can't help but want her.
She's still got her charms,
but I've my own problems to deal with
and only so many arms.

I hear them come quick
in short little fits.
Tainted bursts lifted out of lungs thick with poison.

Deal with this.
"Yo, pass that ****."
Glide through mists of green grass, red brick, and grey stone.

This is not my backyard.

"Please stay with me so I'm not all alone."
Pale fingers on a quest to make contact with skin.
"I'm so overwhelmed, I don't know where to begin."
I'm never going back home again.
It doesn't even exist.

She says there's a system.
God made all the rules and set it in motion,
then calmly walked away
to leave us to our own devices (enterprises, surprises, demises)
Come what may.

"There's a philosopher who said that some people spend too much time playing with the meaning of objects in their heads. It can get to a point where nothing makes any sense, and they go crazy. Some of these people find a way to describe it, and they're known as poets."

The moon knows better than anyone,
with her sly smile reflected off the lake,
and all that light stolen from the sun.

"Do you know what I wish?"
No, and please, don't finish.
We are far from being done.
Let's not end it before we've begun.

This is my backyard.

If I'm just a zero,
then you are the one.

Holes in the heart.
Holes in the head.
It's a heavy burden to carry such emptiness.
It's true what she said,
whoever she is;
this kind of thing is rooted in dread.

White washed days.
Black out nights.
Holes in memories.
Holes in eyes.

Vomited out the soul with the rest of my insides.

Trying to fill the gaps between thighs.
Cutting through the silence with heavy  sighs.
Getting high, always trying to stay high.
Replace the missing pieces with beautiful lies.

Swimming in swirls.
Dancing with smoke trails.
Hung up on these girls
with their golden locks and pigtails.

Curl me around your finger.
Strung out on different pills.
Let's leave this place together
and fulfill those greater thrills.

Hear the music echo
in those ears that still ring.
Move your body to the rhythm.
I want to hear you sing.

Sweet melody.
Released free and clear.
Tonight we are in harmony,
but tomorrow I'm not here.

Falling in love isn't always enough.
There are other things to take into account.
Like, "Where is he going?" and "Where has she been?"
"Is this someone I can trust?"

In the silence between what actually gets said,
I imagine the thought bubbles over their head.
Taking stabs at guessing what text lies within.
"Can you keep a secret?"

I make believe they're all blank;
that there's nothing above that quiet stare.
Dismiss all the feelings with one swift thought:
"She doesn't even care."

Ink these panels with callous strokes.
Forced together in a frame we did not choose.
This is the part where I confess my love.
This is the one where you cut me loose.

Fill in all those speech bubbles
with admissions of our lack of worth.
I'm not cut out to be a superhero.
I had to hear it from your mouth first.

If you are who I think you might be,
and if you're actually reading any of these -
if you're not just an offshoot symptom of my paranoid descent into insanity -
then I want you to know
that I've got something to say:
FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU
Go away!

I grew up watching my parents reduce themselves to their bassist.
Oops, that's a typo:
They are not musicians.
Debasement, so crass.
Humiliation on full blast.
But I guess it's a fairly common thing to dread family vacations.

My mom can't take the hint.
She can't tell when we're disinterested.
My dad talks a bunch of crazy **** despite who might be listening.

There's an unspoken comraderie amongst us siblings.
We're all in this together.
We fight our inherited,
unwanted,
self-destructive tendencies.
When I lose a battle I can always count on them to make me feel better.

Two have found ther wings.
They flew away from this place.
One soars high,
but I fear the other found himself another cage.

It's okay, I think.
I mean, I think he'll be okay.
As for us remaining two,
we're slowly making our way.
Our way out, is what I mean.
It's what I meant to say.

This nest hasn't been kept very warm,
but I guess it's still a home.
With two featherless,
flightless birds to deal with;
I'm glad I didn't have to go it alone.

Some doors should stay closed.
Certain things are best left alone.
Curiosity killed the cat,
and took its soul into the great unknown.

Do you ever wonder about secret agents?
How they behaved when they were young?
Did they have troubled childhoods?
Were they not properly loved?
Did they have a lot of practice with resisting lust?
Did they learn the hard way that there's no one you can trust?

Do you ever wonder about rock stars,
and what makes them so rabid?
Did they recognize their own potential,
but couldn't fight those filthy habits?
All of that anger for their parents, ex-lovers, and friends.
Did they take a trip to hell only to find out that it never ends?
Did that anger actually stem from a disappointment with themselves?

And what about the lonely who never find Someone Else?
Did they all partake on a journey to find their self?
Did they hate the answer?
Did they get no results?
Did they get stuck in a tunnel then couldn't crawl their way out?
Maybe they just never found anyone who could deal with the depth of their faults.

I'm in a chrysalis stage:
still developing into an adult.
All of the mistakes I've made -
their lessons are being retained.
It's all preparation and training.
One day I'll be great.
You don't have to believe me,
but just you wait.

Your number is
the one most often deleted,
usually after some late night greeting.
Please don't reply.
I don't want this misery to keep on repeating.

It'd be easier if I never had to see you again.
I've never had so much trouble with keeping a friend.
When burning a bridge is no longer an option,
I tend to lose my ****.

You're so ******* lovely -
I can hardly deal with it.

If you're not the saint that I paint you out to be,
then do me the favor of not telling me.

You represent pristine purity.
Don't give me a reason to doubt.
When I looked into your eyes that evening,
I knew what you were about.

I dread the loss of your innocence,
but I know it's bound to be.
They say that if you love something completely then you should set it free.

But *******, I admit, you're the most lovely thing I've ever seen.
I'll always resent the fact that I wasn't the one to give you wings.

"This is the last one."
Famous last words.
Caveat emptor;
I think it means consumer beware.

Just one more,
I swear.
He's doing it again.
I promise to buy more beer
tomorrow.

Keep it safe
in familiar territory.
Nothing non sequitur.
Nothing out of place.
Don't go sailing off into outer space.
Stick to topics that relate.
(Ignore how everything is connected to everything else -
not everyone thinks that way.)

Nothing out of left field.
You've got to save some face.
There's a reputation (somewhere, somehow) to maintain.
Be polite, pleasant, and plain.
Leave the madness in your brain.
Hide your heart;
keep it tucked away,
and above all else,
don't go digging up those corpses from their grave.

"Wonderful weather we're having.
Isn't it a lovely day?"

There's so much more to life.
That can't be all there is to say . . .

It was just a fantasy.
Faded now, but even then,
I haven't grown up yet.
Still a kid playing make pretend.

In reality, I'm afraid to be your friend.
I've a pristine image of you in my head.
All glossy glow in a coat of varnish.
I'd hate to see that halo tarnished.

Angel, don't you understand?
I'm not fit to be your man.
I know you've got one and I'm not him.
Jealousy is such a deadly sin.

Heard it said many times from lovely lips.
Karma has gone and flipped the script.
Finally forced to admit a phrase wrought in irony:
You Are Far Too Good For Me.

Oh holy god,
this one clucks.
Let me stop telling jokes and just keep my mouth shut.

Oh no, oh ****.
This one's a total *****.
Mental note to leave the waiter one hell of a tip.

I've never had a date I didn't hate.
I'm so over it.

Oh great,
this one's obsessed with pop culture,
and this one's some sort of rotten carcass eating vulture.
I don't want to hear about your low-life ex-boyfriend.
I'll eat my food as fast as I can.

I've never had a date I didn't hate.
I count down the seconds until they end.

Are you freaking kidding me wearing that skirt?
No, that's okay, we'll skip on dessert.
Did he really just ask for your number?
Go ahead and give it to him.

Oh good god,
this girl is so dim.
What's that you say?
I wasn't listening . . .

I've never had a date I didn't hate.
I think I ought to just give it up.
Finally accept my fate:
No one but you will ever be good enough.

Best in show,
a pomeranian;
You know it.
Bet you thought that glossy fur would fade before the time to grow it.

I'm annoyed by your showy words and non sequitur phrases.
I've had it up to here with toy dogs and indistinguishable faces.

I've a proposition to make -
not one to be taken lightly -
What if we switched places tonight then held our lovers tightly?

Would we feel like strangers in their embrace,
or would we finally understand:
What it takes to calm me down,
and what it means to be your man?

Believed he held some sort of holy grace.
Fought to form a different way.
Risked it all then lost his bet.
Never tried to save some face.

Preached his own progressive agenda.
They attacked him with a personal vendetta.
His story is one we try to forget.
The deeper he's buried-
the better.

Thought he could have been the one.
Took his turn at playing modern messiah.
Burned him at the stake, they did.
The price that's paid of a pariah.

When you hand them a key
then send them blindly down a hallway.
They try opening every door
and knock on the ones that won't open.
This is what you were hoping for:
The echoes of their handfalls
resonant off the whitewashed walls
while you dance to the rhythm in a room they'll never notice.

****** down a twisting whirlwind of limbs.
Scream your heart out and I'll breathe it in.
Pump that bad blood soaked in sin.
I've been waiting for you.

Feel the pressure bearing down.
Sink into the underground.
Confluence of earth and skin.
No one can save you now.

Hurtle through the halls of hell.
Slip inside the deep black void.
All of what was once yourself
and your soul is now destroyed.

The artist fell asleep after he leaked tears on her arm.
She held him tight while full knowing that he's held them in for so long.
Together,
they both dreamed of healing their wrongs.
A picturesque scene of two broken souls moving on.

How rare to find another person with the same gleam in their eye.
She became his muse,
and he was her guy.

They never again questioned their fate.
They stopped asking why.
Oh, the things they did create while they both felt so alive!

But time went on,
and the colors did fade.
They began to pull apart -
growing separate ways.

The artist came to think he did his best work alone.
His queen found herself uncomfortable atop her lofty throne.

They both gave in,
and chalked it up to something neither could define.

She never again would fall for a broken man,
and he spent no more days crying.

If it runs in the blood then I feel bad for the one who gets bitten by the bug that's just had its fill of me.

If sadness is a drug then it does well to disguise itself as selfishness masquerading as sympathy.

Drinking brings out the sociopath.
Madness takes flight with an odd number of wings.

Tell me again.
I beg of you, please;
What do you feel when you think of me?

I made a mistake when I proposed to miss Opaque.
I thought I'd seen her true colors, but I was staring at paint.
She adds more layers with each passing day.
An ever-changing masterpiece.
I admit,
I was infatuated with the constant shift of her landscape,
but I know now-
found out too late -
that underneath it all she's just a blank.

To the bright shiny people with a radiant glow,
I'd say this one's for you,
but you already know.
And so, this is for the others:
The battered and bruised.
The broken in shambles;
distraught and abused.
Those who think that they make no difference.
I'm here to acknowledge your existence.
This one is for you.

The world can be cruel -
known to deal a bad hand,
but you've still got to bet,
and play the best that you can.
It's better than just sitting at the table
as a cynical, do-nothing, always complaining and then
criticizing those who take part in the action.

You hate others because you hate yourself.
You're hopeless because they've got you convinced that you're living in hell.
"I can't do anything right," says the self-loathing pessimist.
You can't change the facts that make up your past,
but the fact is that you can always change your future.
There's hope for you yet.
No longer will you deny your own happiness.
You deserve it simply because you exist.

Did we not all squirm and twist our way to the ****
to get there first so we could worm our way in?
Naturally,
no one remembers any of this,
but it had to have happened because otherwise
we would not exist.
Not as we are now -
not how we've always been -
so I say raise your fist in celebration of that initial victory.

Even if you haven't won one since.
Even if you feel bogged down by misery,
it only means that you've let yourself temporarily forget that it's miracle at all that you even exist.
You're a part of it all just because you are there.
So I ask of the forgetful,
the indifferent,
the scared.
How can you not see the beauty?
How can you not care?

Focus.
Take a step back to take it all in.
Know where you stand
before you begin.

Take a deep breath and realize
we've only got so much time before we die.
Follow your passions and materialize all those dreams floating in your head.
Latch on to one of them,
and see it through until the end.

Sacrifice everything to make it happen.
Even if no one appreciates it,
even if everyone comes to hate it.
There's nothing more admirable
than taking something from your head
and creating it into some sort of event.

Challenge what they've come to know.
Sow your plants in gardens where they're not meant to grow.

Someone, somewhere, will see what it's worth,
to give that meaning to their life that they've been searching for since birth.

They'll take that idea,
and turn it into
a recipe that defines the new flavor of truth.

Progress is a constant contest with traditional norms.
Let's bury that decrepit body and leave it to the worms.
Learn, process, then send it back out.
Erase all doubt.
Let's go and change the world.

Why are you so wacky?
Why can't you just be sane?
You've done a number on yourself
and the inner workings of your brain.
Take a deep breath, you'll see, for sure;
all is not so lost.
Make a path back to the shore.
Our light will guide you through the fog.

You don't understand,
I'm homeless in the sand;
my castles only ever crumble.

Then don't build them so big,
or so close to the tide.
Tame your pride,
and learn to be humble.

I'll share no reefs with bottom-feeding things.
I'll use no shells only fit for a hermit.
I'd rather spend my days in the melodic waves.
I've  got what it takes;
I know how to endure it.

Between dreams of textured landscapes,
I saw an extreme close-up of your skin cells.
No matter what I do, I can't seem to get the taste of you out of my mouth.

Stained as we are,
with matching sets of scars,
I am ashamed of the constant reminder.
No matter how many beds I climb into, I'll always be two steps behind her.

She was once pristine,
with a soul just as clean.
Next to it, mine was a tattered disgrace.

I'll dream again of mountains of skin,
and all the rest of what can't be erased.

Pair up and be saved.
Pair up and look away.
Avert your eyes to the most depraved in our times:
The Herods, Caligulas, the Dorian Grays.
Focus on your own lives;
raise a family.
Fight those wanton propensities.
Avoid flagrant conviviality.
Do not cross that line of becoming too free.
Like those so many victims of their own enormities,
each one a slave to their every desire and whim.
Pair up and be shipped off -
delivered from sin.

This is what you need.
Satisfaction guaranteed.
Everyone is doing it.
Just listen to these true consumer stories.

We've got charts and graphs to prove it.
(We go to great lengths to feed our greed)
This product will fill that hole.
Buy it and finally be happy.

Because we know that you feel alone
in a culture built to make you feel empty.
Look at what it's done for the people you love:
fully endorsed by your favorite celebrities!

You can't live without it.
(Don't you dare doubt it)
We provide it to you out of love
(for a nominal cost)
If you believe in a God above,
and in our country -
if you support our troops,
and want to help our economy -
then you'll pull out your credit card and call the number on your screen.
(give us your money)
To spend it is destiny.

Let us tell you of its miracles.
(We know you're inclined to believe)
We liken our product to the advent of Christ.
(Become a walking advertisement (pay the ******* price))

We've smashed the competition.
This is what you've been wishing for.
Sanctify your existence.
(Buy it now, you mindless sycophantic *****)

If you don't believe what we say,
remember,
it's a virtue to have faith.
It's been reinforced by television, movies, and plays.
We know you pray before you go to sleep every night.
We've got the answer to those prayers.
Buy our product and finally feel alright.
(This is the part where you pay)
What a way to live a life.
Ain't capitalism great?

Clearly an absurdist.
Small stakes for what his word is worth.
The hare let the tortoise beat him accidentally on purpose.
Everyone loves a good story.
When ego is beyond everything
how can you care about fame and glory?
Victory feels silly.
Like a brand new bride without her ring.
Losing only hurts the pride if they allow themselves to feel the sting.
I am far from winning,
but farther still from admitting defeat.
When that rhythm hits me,
I'll sing along and move my feet.

The surface seems sweeter the deeper you go.
Please give me your hand.
I'm too far below.

It's always darkest right before dawn.
How long have I been sleeping on rock bottom?
Have you got a breathing apparatus on?
I'm sending signals in waves.

This is a new kind of certain old craze:
holding one's breath til the end of their days.

A good captain always goes down with his ship.
Easily done when there are no lifeboats attached to it.

I'm shooting up flares.
Is anyone there?
They sail right on by when you no longer care.

A man of action,
I was,
for a series of months.
I worked my *** off and fought all of my thoughts.

A constant distraction;
that's all I want.
No matter what happens,
I cannot get lost.
Caught up in longing for what never was.

Let me be a rock,
let life wash over me.
I'll stand solid in the middle of a stream.
Feeling no feelings.
Dreaming no dreams.
And worrying not about these waters that will erode me.