The ones I'm writing now
and many that came before;
they belong to you.
All these words are yours.

The thought that I put into them.
The effort to make it true.
All these words I've written;
they belong to you.

Do with them what you will.
They are payment for a debt.
The one incurred by the inspiration you've given.
Consider us even.
This is all you get.

But that shining silver disc
with twenty favorite tracks -
those songs belong to me,
and now I want them back!

So take these words and thoughts.
They're yours,
but that CD is not!

Those songs are mine.

What would a poet write about if they ever actually grew up?*

I'll take a stab at it.*

I've got about six errands to run today,
then I'll pick up the wife to join George and Mary for a double dinner date.
We've reservations at a restaurant where it's $90 a plate.
We'll debate the pros and cons of a 401K
against a solid stock option investment strategy.
"Why not have both?" - that's what I always say!
Oh, that reminds me;
I need to update my résumé.

My credit rating went up 78 points this year.
I can finally afford everything I've ever held dear.
I forget what they are . . .

I've spent an alarming amount of time just sitting in a car
while parked in some front yard,
beer in hand,
jamming out to favorite songs.

I love this all so much.
Just us, being here, like this.
Let's all live together,
for like,
forever.

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There's a full moon tonight.
I have the time to appreciate it.
Must be doin' something right.

Everything is quiet.
My soul's all but silent.
The voices in my head a dull murmur.
A whispering susurrus.
At worst, a distant cicada's rhythmic chirping.

Then I would wisk away all doubt,
Which is to say,
That I would mix it in with all the fears I'd rather forget about until it congealed into some edible manifestation of my whole life's worthless purpose baked into some half-crusted pie.

Eat it half-heartedly or else starvationally die.

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.

There's a feeling that I get
when everything's fallen to pieces.
Suddenly it all makes sense.
Old theory's busted.
Time to come up with a new thesis.

I'll state that I know nothing
but my own experiences.

She told me a fanciful story of woe.
I could relate.
"It's like suffocating, you know?"

Turns out that my ruling planet is Venus.
Laughter.
"That must be why you're so effeminate!"
"Stop. Whatever. Everyone knows that astrology is *******."
"Maybe so, but it's still fascinating."

I'm more interested in how we'd fit,
but you've made your point.
Really, it is though.

I keep having wacky dreams
followed by false awakenings in which
I'm telling the people who were featured in them about
the things that I've been dreaming
and then I wake up for real and realize
that no one's even listening.

Springboarded into the future,
and now I can finally afford a decent piece of furniture.

But the disassembled futon in the unused bedroom looks as if it's been manipulated by some angry spirit whose soul doesn't know any better than to linger.

My oldest friend and first girlfriend gave me a tarot card reading while I stayed at her place when I was midway towards my new life in this strange state.

It was vaguely upsetting.

But I can't remember the trappings of a mind that I've taken every endeavor to leave behind.

The thing about a banana bar is that it's really just banana bread with frosting; banana cake, really, is what it ought to be called.

Banana fish can only be caught on a perfectly banal day, but it's the kind of thing one shouldn't wish for, ever.

Rewound into the past,
and for just one moment I can finally relax.
Stretch out the tightly woven brain matter and let it splat into ink blots that sort of remind me of that one time that we had a great time while expounding on our little personal explorations into emotional forefronts where all judgement was either suspended and/or explained in such a way as to not affect us at all.

Pioneers of living a life without societal fears where we were free to steer the wheel of progress in any direction we saw fit . . .

Aw ****, I have to work tomorrow.

I hope regret doesn't destroy this before it starts.
Together, I believe we could make great art.

Sometimes I get you two confused in my brain.
The right and left hemispheres.
Like you're one and the same.
Melded together in my mind.
Like black and white to make gray.
Like grey matter.
Like clay.
Molded from the same kind of material.

I hope regret doesn't play a part.
I hold a place for you both inside of my heart.

The butterfly and the moth.
Caterpillar and chrysalis.
The wings and the body.
The eyes on both sides.

You're beautiful together.

Where do I fit into this?
Maybe I don't.
If so, tell me to stay away from it,
but I'll feel regret.
I love you both.

It's nice to have someone on your side:
In your corner, rooting for you to win the fight.

The struggles and hang-ups in your life,
The internal strife and hurdles to climb over -
those are all your own.

But that doesn't mean you have to face them alone.

Pretty much sums up the conversation we had earlier.
The one about how you knew that I thought your pretentious pretty friend was more interesting than you.

Yea I'm crazy
Crazy confident
And crazy fun
Think you can handle that?
Then you're the only one

**** right I'm smart
Smart enough to know I'm not
Dumb enough not to care
Does that sound right to you?
Does that sound fair?

Sure I love her
But what does that matter?
It won't keep me coming back
After I've already had her

So what do you think,
And do you think it's true?
It doesn't mean much to me
So what is it to you

Sense is a scene of collective meaning where prevailing modes of thinking swarm up in a mighty hand of insects with the intention of slamming down upon some unsuspecting bird.

Smash the graphite with a head of stone.
I crashed my car into an old oak tree.
I saw a boy fly tonight.
His arms spread wide as he sailed over my hood.
I think I knew him once.

Killed the cat and ate the bird.
That egg headed demon possessed me with his words.

Break the glass with a fistful of sand.
A crumpled torn up manuscript.
Forced the square into the circle.
Cascading shards of what was once a windshield.

Squashed the brains against the base.
Chunks of bone like splintered wood.
Entered while I exit.
My body is soft served ice cream.
The flavor of Hate.

Ground up meat in a plastic bag.
My guts are a ****** firework.
Tornado of manufactured metal.

I made my escape.

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

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.

Getting lost between the pages.

I just deleted forty lines.
I haven't snorted one in ages.
I tell them all I'm high on life.
Can't tell the difference between criminals and sages.
Not to stake a claim on anything.
Not to shake a leg or anything.
Not to say I'm not really here,
but just dreaming.
Somebody pinch me.

Apathy is dead.
Gone are the days of no longer giving a ****.
Caring is what's in now.
Down is the new up.

To be recited while standing atop a table
in the middle of the room
during a party.

Clocks are spinning backwards.
The midnight hour never struck.
Turning pages left to wright.
Down is the New up.

To be yelled out in a library
from the top of a bookshelf
in the History section.

The broken down and beaten;
the wounded, burned, and cut.
We are not defeated.
Down is the New Up.

To be blared over the PA system
in the Emergency Room of a hospital
after a massacre.

A conjoining of festered faiths.
A mutant monster made from a million parts.
A rolling tide that turns tsunami in a sea of tortured hearts.
One colossal cosmic shift.
A sun born from the dark.
Falling up from the bottom and rising down from the top.
A monumental force that cannot be stopped.

To be shouted through a bullhorn
in the center of the city
during a riot.

Down Is The New Up!
DOWN IS THE NEW UP!!
**DOWN IS THE NEW UP!!!

I'll climb all of your mountains.
Show me all your peaks.
Let me look down on the rest of the world so that I can determine their disease.

Grind me to pieces with your gravel.
Tear me limb from limb.
There's no distance I won't travel to find what beauty lies within.

Throw me in the fire.
Spread my ashes in the wind.
Breath out the remnants of this life
so that I may live again.

My mind has been cleaved open.
I'm feeling expansive.
Take me out tonight;
I feel like dancing.

Buy me a drink or two.
By the end we'll be in flight.
"I swear I'll make it up to you."
Let's feel alive tonight.

Bump and grind and jump and jive
to get lost in the moment.
The meaning of life can sit behind while instincts take up the forefront.

I do love this song so much,
and this is what I live for.
Philosophy is out to lunch when I'm out on the dance floor.

(This is the part where your theme song surges up inside your head,
and when you feel the energy hold out til you see red.
Release it all in one hot go out into that hail storm
with the passion that you've carried with you from the day that you were born.)

The thing about fiction (lies, promises, religion) is,
that it's only as true as you believe it to be.

The thing about being cool with everything is that sometimes people will try to chill you into freezing a frame that you've only ever enjoyed in motion.

Ideally, I'd've gone home already.
Done the dishes.
Wished that all of this had never'd happened.

Anyway, I've a feeling that I'll feel ****** tomorrow.
About it.
And this.
Bliss is offset by unpreferred circumstances.

Meanwhile, the Peter Pan version of myself who lives in the back of my head is mockingly bleating like a sheep.

This song is so much more than just two and a half minutes of pretty lyrics and heavy bass.

It defines a whole phase of my life.

When beauty could be felt and even the wrong things felt rite.

I can't help but write pretentious poetry about it.

I can't not lose my mind.

Gone away to jump through hoops set up by another collective mindsets' ideals.

The thing about a broken chain is in the missing links it attempts to steal.

So here we are all bound together in a gear motor with loose bearings,
and yet somewhere in the heated friction we find a new drive worth endearing.

Most definitely, they know what it is.
Even without knowing.
Don't you see?
That's the beauty of it.
Ignorance is bliss.
I could die right now and be fine with it.

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?

Highly educated, low-life prince.
I heard he graduated but no one's seen him since.

Here for the rush, we all wait in line
just for a small dose of turpentine.

Cracked the only egg left in the basket.
You really shouldn't plan your whole strategy on something so fragile.
There's a question left unanswered but I'm afraid to ask it.
The yoke of old folks is their fear of change.
It's unfair to blame them for it;
it was ingrained at a young age.

Gravity with its heavy hand would have something to say about the way you stand.
Get out while you're still upright.
Get out while you still can.

There's a difference between being with someone, and loving someone.

There's a difference between having a place to sleep at night, and having a home.

There's a difference between being lonely,
and being alone.

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.

. . .

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.

Life's a mess.
My soul is quiet.
My playing is inspired!
I've been reading half the day.
Man,
I'm freaking tired.

I told them all I just wanted a small hovel and a shovel with which to dig a hole to bury all the things I never cared to see again.

I said sometimes the things that make you who you are are best left forgotten and covered with soil,
regardless, (or rather, in spite of,) what they will one day grow into.
Nobody knew what cloudscape this particular beanstalk would lead to, but they climbed it anyway.

They reminded me about that one time when I mentioned that someday I'd grow wings and fly off into the imploding sun.

I told them all that I don't like being quoted.

I resent this emergence of televised li(v)es.
A pathetic attempt to make our own feel less worthless.

Mother,
don't you realize?
You're wasting away.
I don't care about who the Bachelor sent home today!
That's not real love.
All that ****'s fake.

You spend your whole life staring at screens.
Get out of the house!
Please, do something!

I look back at the past and it strikes me like art.
We spent those days splashing through invisible paint.
Revealed years later as we lie in dark rooms.
Life is a stage.
We played our part.

I look at the present and it feels like a war.
Everyday there's another battle to be fought.
Lost some comrades along the way;
trapped in memories I forgot.

The future is a shifting plan attempting to be set into motion.
Like a melody in the head that's yet to be written.
Like a day spent purposely thinking silly thoughts
in order to ensure a night full of silly dreams.
It's like trying to predict what the monument will be
to commemorate those who served in a war
that hasn't even started yet.

You're getting on the ride I just got off.

Oh, it's a blast and I'm sure you'll have fun while it lasts.
Dizzy head spinning colors excitement et al.
A pit of the stomach feeling fear of the fall.
Fizzy scenes fading behind thumping screens and the uncanny feeling that it means everything.
Tingling fingertips and back of the throat drips that sink into an endless pit of elation/pleasure/despair.

You're getting on the ride that i just got off of.

I'll be waiting here after you've had enough.

Sorry about that.
My feelings got shut off.
Totally beyond control.
An automatic response.
Now I'm saying sorry,
but we both know I'm not.

A feeling can be fleeting,
but what about the source of a thing?
From just one seed,
roots can grow deep.
Though the leaves of a tree may change,
and some branches might break or fall off,
there is one part that always remains,
grows stronger;
the heart.

Say it isn't so,
and maybe it's not about me,
but I can't help but take it personally though.

It's the type of thing;
Some people call it a disease,
but it's the only one that people can (justifiably) hate you for having.

Please believe me.
Please allow me to make these words ring true.
I want all of it.
This and that and everything;
Just tell me what to do.

"Adore me!"
"You bore me,"
and I am not like that.
Domestic goddess take a hike;
please get off my back.

"Ignore me!"
"No problem,"
I said into the wind.
So much for happy endings;
now let the truth sink in.

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.