I don't want to annoy the few people who don't annoy me.

But at what cost?
Holding back.
Biting tongue.
Sitting out when I could be having more fun.

Oh right, fun. That became a problem. Having too much fun makes things fray at the edges.

So here I am, all proper hemmed,
and a bit lonely for refusing to annoy a friend.

Time has become much more important
All the numbers now have purpose
And whole fractions are devoted
To a task I have to do, that must be done.

Time has become much more important
Time is such a joke
All the numbers now have purpose
As if some random numbers can determine
With whole sections allocated
What I should be doing, how I'm living
To a task I have to do,
I'd rather cling to every moment, wring each one out for all its got.

Time has become much more important
Time is all but worthless
They say life is short
All the numbers now have purpose
As if some random configuration of hands on a clock
But when it comes down to time consumption
And whole segments are converted
Has anything to do with what I'm feeling
There isn't anything else that even comes close to it,
Into activities that must be done
During any given moment
Life is the longest thing anyone will ever do. . .

Could we slip into the deep abyss
and fill the void with some kind of bliss?

It's just another Friday night,
and this is how we get our kicks.

Could we quit this ride into the sunset's dying light,
and throw a welcoming party for the stars?

Seems an awful waste -
they're always there,
and there's still gas in the car.

We can drip from the middle of this double-lit candlestick until we reach our combined wits' end.

Would it make less sense to do so?
And if we did,
could we still be friends?

You keep throwing caution to the hungry winds,
while I stand by and fly my kite in them.

It's just another Friday night,
and we're all wondering where to begin.

Barely a decade under the belt,
and burying a barely felt sense of self under layers of bedding.
Sweating, short on oxygen, over-heating: it should have been the opposite of comforting.
What was it all about?
An attempt at returning to the womb
or trying to shut everything else out.

As do boats.
As do bodies lying in moats
surrounding castles' fortified walls.

Hope mopes.
Waiting in line at the airport to be cleared through customs,
unaware that it is itself contraband.

Hope is for dopes.
Every man is an island.

Some haven't developed proper ports yet.

Play a song they know,
behind smiling faces, having a great time.
Making memories.
Having a night that will result in a story.

By the time you realize you're in a bad situation,
it's already too late. The damage is already done.

Smiling, laughing in the sun. Passing around drinks, with the logo facing out.

Party favors you make believe aren't the whole reason for your being there, for the gathering in the first place.
Partaking until you can't feel your feelings, can't hear your thoughts, can't feel your face.

By the time you find out just how ******* you are, there's already no escape.

With too much fun, comes the twisted fun-house mirror, reflecting something back that you refuse to identify with. ****, rusted and stained.

Horrified. Alone. Afraid.

People can't read minds,
even if it seems like they can sometimes,
but at least a few can read between lines;
what do they find?

Surprises.

(I doubt it.)

People can feel all kinds of things
without saying a word about it.

Somewhere someone I love is not thinking about me right now.
Somewhere else is where my mind lives most of the time from now on,
and I have to write this to a song I haven't listened to since the last time I lost my mind in some nowhere town,
thinking of no one I've ever loved.

Words have their uses,
but they've been perverted to the point of being almost worthless.
Only the cool kids know where their power lies now.
Get out there and make some music.

You're like a unicorn in a world full of mules.
You are a treasure in a room full of tools.
A patch of bright color in a washout of gray.
Whatever "it" is, you've got it in spades.

Dull but insistent.
A ringing phone in the pocket of abandoned pants.
An unbidden question.
Thin branch tapping against the bedroom window.

Are you getting out of bed today?

Don't answer that.

Shoved in the corner.
Buried under a mountain of clothing.
A chair that hasn't been sat on in weeks.

Do you even care?

Hunger unfed.
Curtains pulled to hide the sun;
Shiny happy people holding hands.

Where are your friends? You do have friends, right?

Don't answer 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.

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.

Steeled with treated temperament.
Prepped by tempered expectation.

Danger of the arranged meeting with unknown entities.
The sting of a stranger.
Venom of anonymity.

A crash course in coercion;
The fall of Rome.
Murphy's law.
Devastation.

It's like being writ into some melodramatic hit show,
playing the ******* who just can't commit no matter how far she's willing to go.

Check the thirst pic. I'm only here to give ****.

The epitome of undesirable megalomaniacal hit-it-and-quit-it,
I'm-only-in-it-for-the-**** type ****.

Not interested in a relationship.

When you say things like that, it has no effect.
I can't feel any of that.

We can wine and dine first, if you're a traditionalist.

Just setting the stage for the main event. Give it 'til she gets it so she can tell all her friends: best I've ever had. **** like you're poor with demons on your back. After curtain call, skip the bow and exit stage-left.

I always expect the worst from people.

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.

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.

I used to attempt to capture in writing all of the times I never thought I'd have the time to recall later in life.
To capture a moment I thought I'd never have the opportunity to live again.
To cage a thought I thought would live wild and free for the rest of my life.
To say farewell to a moment in a way that was gracious, but final.

auf wiedersehen, dear moment.
Au revoir, sayonara, so long.

I thought I'd never see you again.
Boy, was I wrong.

I'd rather witness one tiger deftly stalking their target than to watch two dozen of you drinking yourselves *******.

Pastel houses,
carousel mouses.
Culture clashes in tourist-reliant suburban wastelands.

Toxic aftermath pouring out of performers' hands as everyone claps.

This is what I grew up in.

These streets are full of magic.
The kind that seeps from grand dreams seen to fruition.
The kind that charges tuition on the merits of your madness.
The kind where failed ambition sleeps in back alleys,
feeding off forgotten sadness.

See, the thing about talent is,
it never really dies.
Sure, it hides from time to time,
or rather, it hibernates.

No, I wasn't thinking about what tomorrow is, or her, when I called you. (If you couldn't tell from me not mentioning it.)
I was just glad to finally catch you at a decent hour, to hear about how you've been doing; to hear about how your daughters have been doing.

To be honest, I didn't even know that day was coming up.
I'm still trying to catch dad at a decent hour to wish him a happy belated. (That's been my parental focus lately.)
As for tomorrow, well, I've never really cared for that particular day, or her, to be honest.
(You already know this.)

I never did tell you how beautiful I thought your eulogy was.
I thought about it for months (years) afterwards.
How you somehow managed to only focus on the good, or, no, that's not quite right.
Rather, how you managed to make all the bad somehow seem not so bad. As if our lives had been enriched, rather than impoverished by it. But like, it wasn't even a trick, spun by some spin artist.  
It was genuine, and a testament to your ability to forgive,
and with you being the eldest, and having received the brunt of it . . .  
I just thought, you know, like, maybe . . .
well, you know, maybe I have told you already how beautiful I thought it was.

Sometimes, I think of responses to things, or things I'll say to people in my head (over and over again,) but then I forget whether or not I ever got around to actually saying them to the person I intended to.
Sometimes, I say them to someone else instead.
Or else, I say them to the person I meant to, but forget that it's already been said,
and so I say it to them over and over again.
Hammering them over the head with repetition upon repetition on repetitive hammering hits on the head, over and over again -
deaf to whatever they might have said in response or defense.

Sometimes, I fear, I'm turning into our mother, in that sense.

The grizzled general grinned,
this was it. The enemy stood no chance.

"Alright men, chaaaaaaaarge!"

The ground shook with their thundering steps, the sky split from their bloodthirsty roars. The bravest of men would've sent his chainmail chittering from the shakes at the sight of it, yet the enemy stood their ground. In fact, they held their positions as if they were frozen to the sands.

Seconds before impact, the general realized something wasn't right.

It was already too late - on either side of the charging column, the arid land sprouted with life. Not flora nor fauna but full grown men sprang up, tossing away their dun-dyed coverings while simultaneously readying their javelins.

They loosed them at the charging men just as they met the armored dummies they'd erected days before.

The general ground his teeth as the left and right edge of his company collapsed. His left, then right eye twitched as the flanking forces squeezed against what remained of his army.

It was over in minutes. His men, decimated.

He'd never lost a battle before.

He spat, cursed, then urged his horse forward at a gallop to meet his fate. He'd finally been outmatched.

The dimpled back of the banshee that haunts your hollows,
as inescapable as the back of your eyelids.
The acid in your veins, the same pH as the bile you spent your youth spewing onto unsuspecting plants. Poor things.
Pouring whatever you can down gullets, gutters, toilets -
fancying yourself freed from the fiend that had been keening deep inside your bowel.
Romanticizing the expectorant as some kind of exorcist, ridding yourself of the demon you spent the entirety of your childhood feeding.

Then I'd say that there's way too many Mustangs on this godforsaken base.

It hides in the everyday now,
buried underneath.
It waits for us to pull back the veil that reveals the truth we spend the rest of our time longing for, loathing, hoping for, holding on to.  

It rides on the wings of the things we forget to say, that we only think of an hour later, or the next day.

It hides in our heads until we go to sleep then presents itself in our dreams with such pristine clarity.

It's everything you've ever wanted life to be when you feel too weak to put in the effort.

It's everything you've ever wanted life to be when you're too tired to think about how to best spend your next free hour.

It sleeps inside us all,
but we're exasperated by its power.