You take life too seriously,
and it's really quite a shame,
because life's too serious when taken that way -
it's better to play it like a game.

You should get a tattoo.
Something whimsical and fun,
like the Keibler elf riding a dolphinicorn -
Man that would be so awesome!

You take yourself too seriously,
and I'm pretty sure you do it on porpoise.
Listen: just because you got a dumb tattoo
doesn't mean you're worthless.

Did you have to work for your indifference
Or has it always come naturally
Because you're unnaturally calm
In the face of this catastrophe

Is one born with apathy
Or is it a lack of something else
Do you even have the capacity
To analyze yourself?

Do you have, at least, the tenacity
To process what you've felt
Because if I were you tonight, I think
I'd be foaming at the mouth

Realize that there's no such thing,
then give up on resisting this nonexistent ideal of being,
then realize that by even fighting this invisible thing in the first place
that you were really just rehearsing for later-on confrontations where you'll end up either having to stand up for personality traits vaguely resembling nonconformity or joining some bandwagon whose riders are all non-admittingly terrified by traits in a person who they find to be just a bit more than vaguely disturbingly off-beat, or at the very least, too far off from their own safe and comfortable sense of normalcy to be considered worth hiring/keeping/promoting.

Do you know what I mean?

A liquid thing.
Somewhere between melting and floe.
A shifting thing,
separating sheets that shroud the unknown.
A spiraling siphon that grows as senses heighten.
A quickening pulse that gathers and glows.

"Man, I thought I told you the show doesn't start til eleven."

No man, the show goes when I do,
to wherever I'm headin'

He glides down the street on free swinging feet.
Slides through the scenes in this ballet of dreams.
The only audience he needs is watching from heaven.

It's a burning thing.
Somewhere between an eruption and candle,
with sizzling skin left behind by things too hot to handle,
and footprints singed into the sidewalk.

It's a shifting of plates inside the brain.
A breaking up of the saner parts.
A typhoon of thoughts and a flame in the heart
that hits the body like an earthquake.

I'm a nothing, and you're a non,
so let's get together and be someone.
Ford the rivers without a gun,
so who's ascared of a hippopotamus?
Beneath four three-toed legs, I'll swim towards some goal.
Hard-pressed against the net of chaos.

Here's a thrashing;
here's a lashing;
here's a joke to keep them all laughing.

There's a leak to keep them from speaking.
There's a lapse to keep from collapsing.
Here's a perfect ship sinking in order to crash their modes of thinking.
I swear I've dreamed of enough escapes to keep myself from clapping.

How much of my history can you read from my mouth?
Can you make some sort of sense of what my life is about?
"You ought to quit smoking.
It's bad for your gums."
It seems my teeth are paying the price for how I like to have fun.
I dread the sound of that drill,
but I'm here of my own free will.
Please don't tell me that I have a cavity.
Ask me about my flossing habits,
and if I've been experiencing sensitivity.
I have.
You see, I've been having these dreams in which I'm spitting out all of my teeth.
I looked it up in Zolar's encyclopedia.
It reads:
Teeth falling out = death.
It's been ******* with me.
I found some other sources which state
that losing your teeth in dreams is a subconscious way of expressing anxiety.
Sounds about right.
I've been waking up in hot sweats every single night.
With a weight on my chest that feels like the precursor to death.
I've told my favorite non-friend about how lately I've been feeling a sense of impending doom.
Like I'm headed towards disaster.
She didn't have anything to say about it.
I guess I've always had a flair for the melodramatic.

My friends don't seem to like me much;
at least, not as much as they once did,
so I've been ordering things online, you see;
sending myself these little gifts.
I try to buy them quickly,
and mostly on a whim.
That way, when they get to me,
I'm half-surprised by what's within.
I guess you could say I'm lonely,
or call it some sort of selfishness,
but I'd send gifts to my friends if only
I could remember any of their addresses.

Here's the thing about getting stung by potent bat-**** bees whose venom is full of both profundity and absurdity;
You'll spend the rest of your life recovering from it,
while simultaneously attempting to decide which is witch.

It starts with curiosity;
fascination,
admiration,
affixation.
Excitement and expectation.
Fondly falling for flutterings.
Paying too much attention to alterations.
Getting hung up on fluctuations.

It turns into frustration.
Feelings of inadequacy.
Indignation.
Self-abasement.
Fear and loathing.
Dread.

Followed by annoyance.
Re-evaluation.
Revulsion.
Remembering what's important.

It ends with indifference;
over it.
Free again,
thank goodness.

The best poem I ever wrote was written just for myself
The best movie I've ever seen; I shared with no one else
This is my life
This is my hell
and when it's all over, you'll just say "oh well."

And it folds so completely back onto itself.

I once knew a girl who said,
"All those little coincidences mean that you are exactly where you are meant to be, at that moment in time."
I believed it then.
Then I grew older, and the coincidences started to happen too often.
They became commonplace.
When she came back from the dead I told her so.
That "Our lives are all subjective, and the only reason that we recognize the coincidences is because we just so happen to be paying the right amount of attention to the situation that our minds currently find themselves in.
There is no such thing as coincidence.
Our whole life is but one big 'coincidence.'
The deja vu makes us feel crazy;
Makes us feel alive
We are divine.
Our lives are sublime.
They're not just coincidences, they're happening all the time!"

I slid into a time portal that turned into a home.
I hid the lessons I forgot to learn underneath a rotting poem.
I leaned against a no-one and found out who I was.
I did it all to feel alive,
and/or just because.

Why do people write?
Is it because their thoughts are too loud?
Is this the only way they've found to somehow dim the sound?

Like a pressure relief valve.

The pen as a wrench.
Use it to unscrew that hydrant;
let it all pour out.

The crows won't leave my cat alone,
so I punched one out of the sky.
Stupid ****** bird -
don't **** with my little guy.

That guy out there doing his own thing:
Yea, he's my hero.

It's times like these that I wish you were still around.
I could use somebody to keep me from sleeping on the ground.

Your worry spoke volumes,
but I've since grown deaf.

You were caught up in living.
I'm hung up on death.

No more phony saviors.
No more unasked for questions.
No more forced behaviors or unwanted confessions.

No more false prophets.
No more second guesses.
No more burnt synapses or blown out thought processes.

No more ****** mouths.
No more bitten tongues.
It's finally over now.
Finally, it's done.

The End to Ups and Downs -
forget about "c'est la vie."
There'll be nothing more from You now;
all that's left is Me.

I don't even care if they care.
Just give me a pair of eyes to stare at while I improvise lines.
A couple of ears to hear some sorry excuses for rhymes.
I'll recite them all for less than a dime.
I'm just hoping for another free Corona.
(Please hold the ******* lime.)

"Well hey there! How was your New Year's?"
Well, I sang a song and made a toast
To the fire in our hearts
I apologized to the host
For drinking and driving the last time I'd left
When I'm drunk I like to think that I know better than the best

I lit off fireworks with a pretty girl
We listened to James Brown while gunpowder spiders lit up the world
We took alot of shots
And sat by the fire
We talked of this, that, and the other

Later on I found my friend with his head in his hands
Crouched up against his car; crying over the dead
Lamenting that they couldn't be here for this event
And I cried a little too, because that kind of thing messes with my head

My childhood friend was also there
He had driven in from out-of-town
He was tripping on acid, and had me pinned to the ground
In an insane attempt to give me some sort of comfort
I finally got him off me with an effective headbutt

Then I ran down the street
While yelling, "I HATE EVERYTHING!"
Then slowed down to a walk after I'd gotten far enough
Smoked a cigarette and contemplated the true nature of love

So when you ask me that seemingly innocuous question
"Hey, how was your New Years? Did anything happen?"
All I can say is,
"Well, ha! It was definitely something!"

When hope and home sound the same,
then you're probably nowhere near it.
I've commandeered someone's private plane,
but I have no idea where to steer it.

"Hooray for loners," said he,
Slamming his fists on the bar.

"Three cheers for loners," he said,
Feeling surrounded by kindred spirits who refused to join in.

"Here's to the loners," he repeated to the ceiling, while falling off the stool.

"For all loners die alone," he croaked from the floor, as he was dragged away.

If you have somewhere to get to
Just come and let me know
I will gladly take you anywhere
Every place you want to go

If there's anything you need out there
Anything at all
Just know that I am here for you
Don't hesitate to call

Helping is just in my nature
At least, when it comes to helping you
I just can't seem to help myself
I'll do anything for you

Even if you just want to talk
I am an excellent listener
I could listen to your voice for days
Tightly wrapped around your finger

I really wish you would call soon though
It has been quite awhile
I yearn to do somethings for you
I want to make you smile

I'm worried that you haven't called
And as I'm wondering why
I see you walking down the street
Holding hands with some other guy

So it seems you found someone new
To do all of that stuff
All the things I used to do for you
I guess you've had enough

But I know for a fact
That he won't last
He doesn't know you like I do
Before long
You'll come crawling back
You'll see that I'm the one for you

Because he doesn't know what position you played
In little league when you were a kid
He doesn't know about when your grandpa died
Or that he wore a wig

He doesn't care about the movies you like
Or that you only wear one shade of lipstick
He's probably just like every other guy
And only cares about your ****

I bet he doesn't know what pulls at your heart
Or how you wish that you could paint the moon
So I can't allow myself to fall apart
I know you'll need me again real soon

Is that what the black-magic-matador is supposed to say as he pulls what's left of his cape out of the dryer?

Dyed blood red and riddled with holes,
but when you mess with a bull,
you get the horns.

"Alakazam," and it's out of my hands.
Stained white gloves hiding ***** tricks;
I'm washing them of you.

3, 2, 1 . . . now watch this:
I'm going to make every secret wish,
every half-expressed sentiment of longing,
every rabbit, dove, and remnant of love
disappear!

My dad talks in his sleep.
He says the wackiest things.
My mom and my brother's fiancé  are on the back porch drinking.
He's asleep.
So is my niece.
She's on the couch next to me while I'm watching Louie.
This all after coming home from a party where the singer of my band tried to ****** me.
Before I drove home I did some drunken text messaging.
Sometimes, I swear,
I don't know what to think.
It's all so absurd,
yet charming in a way.
I fear I'm bound to go crazy.
I've got to get away.

He says he misses the days when we used to do nothing.
I said those days are dead.
She says it's like a high-pitched whirring noise way back in her head.

Everyone's so salty now, trapped in a can of mixed nuts.

She says his stasis is driving her insane.
He says she's already wasted the better half of her brain.
I said it seems we're always caught between two extremes,
but I could give a flux.

Don't pretend like it's all gonna end,
when it's right about to start.

And don't give in
to the "less than them,"
when they don't know the first thing about a heart.

Twenty times two is twenty-two;
I've got all of five years on you.
Please paint me in a hue that pleases your palatte.
I hope you brought enough blue.

Like a thing hanging from the branch of a tree that's really just a bunch of atrophied limbs,
standing oh-so-ever still in the middle of winter in July,
and adding just enough weight to break the twig;
now we're watching people die.

I cleaned my room today.
It started with the closet.
I tried everything on, and based on the fit, decided whether or not to toss it.
(I mean, donate.)
I filled two boxes.

Then I went in a clockwise motion from there, attacking and reorganizing everything I came across.
I took **** near everything out of my room so that I could mop it.
Then I put everything back in,
got drunk while watching Netflix in a very clean room,
and eventually wrote a ****** poem about it.

When two cents become worth more than a dime,
is it a crime to only shell out a nickel?
We're still making some kind of profit.

You're crazy alright
I can see it in your eyes
And I should know
Because so am I

You're clever, for sure
I've seen that look before
A face so bored with common words
It craves for something more

I'm smitten, I'll swear
I think I'd better beware
Because I'd do almost anything that you could think to dare

So let's swap rules
And play a round of truth
I think I'm willing to admit
That you are rude
And super cruel
And I'm totally into it

With those longful stares
And sideways glances
I think I'll take my chances

Cause I'm not scared
Of frightened faces
I live for doomed romances

Whip crack in the back!
Suffering from a heart attack,
Your face is looking pale and your jaw is looking slack
Go back, go back from whence you came
Once you enter here, you'll never be the same
This outpour
This rage
This fire of sage
Bush
Ignites in your brain.  internal organs turn to mush.
Of course discourse leads one off course
To slide face first into the blackened dirt.

Now work, now work.  As hard as you can
Break your back for the consumers and your soul for the man
You stand
You try
But your knees go wild
And your bowing once again
As if to be admired

The fake said to the phony,
"I'm hip to your jive and the smell of bologna,"

Meanwhile, homegirl still pronounces the L in salmon.

Somedays are deep fried and pan seared to perfection.
This is not one of them.

The bonafide bonerless guy cried aloud that he wished he would die,
so we took him out for ice cream.

Disappointments, like mistakes, are a painful but important part of the learning process.

Sub-human thing.
Unsubtle sting;
a barb that pierces.

My body sings a song that echoes owl screeches.
The moon, it gapes;
my one escape to the farthest reaches.

Out on the fringe, my fur is tinged by embers burnt into the skin
to be met with gnashed teeth and claws that grasp at meat within.

Sub-human form;
body transformed into a nightmare.
A howl that drowns out all and every modern trapping.

Run away and I'll give chase.
Red blood boiling through my veins.
Tearing flesh with filed fangs;
enamoured with the taste.

All types of schizos are my friends
And I'm schizotypal too
We get together and share the crazy things in our heads
But care not about how much of it might be true

They may be a bit rough around the edges
But they're a good bunch
We focus on action; the things that we do
And try not to think too much

Most people find it bizarre
But most people bore me to death
We can't help it; we are what we are
All in love, obsessed, with insanity's depth

I like telling you things that I won't remember saying.

My family's problem is -
well ****. There's a list.
It's been in my head for years now,
so let's get it over with.

My mother's problem is,
she's a good-for-nothing alcoholic.
We've all tried to get her to stop it,
but there's nothing we can do about it.

My father's problem is,
he's too ******* nice.
He believes in the sanctity of marriage.
He still loves his wife.

My older sister's problem is,
she wants nothing more than to be normal,
but she has no idea what that means.
She takes all her cues from commercials.

My brother's problem is
a Christopher Columbus complex.
If he didn't discover it first,
then he could care less.

My younger sister has problems too.
The last born into this mess.
She has no idea what to do.
She still tries her best.

My problem is,
I think too **** much.
Spent my whole life trying to escape it.
Now I'm way out-of-touch.

My grandma's problem is,
she did everything right.
Never smoked a cigarette.
Never had a drink in her whole life.
My gram's problem is,
that despite all her grace,
she's still losing her mind.
She doesn't even recognize my face.

My older sister's problem is,
that she's so ****** condescending.
As if she's got it figured out,
but we know she's just pretending.

My brother's problem is,
he thinks that he's the ****.
If you're not doing like he's doing,
then he can't handle it.

My father's problem is,
he tries his best to "Let It Be,"
but through his words and actions,
it's clear that he's angry.

My problem is
that I'm too self-absorbed.
Quietly observing in order to find a way
to put it into words.

My little sister's problem is,
she still believes she's a princess.
After getting a good look at the kingdom,
she realized it's something she'd rather not possess.

My family's problem is,
we're all a bit over-stressed.
They're all too embarrassed by it,
so I'll be the one to confess.

My problem is,
I'm an instigator.
Chalk it up to my love for drama.
It's no wonder I'm an English major.

My brother's problem is,
he thinks that we still hate him.
The villain of our childhood.
He can't accept being forgiven.

My older sister's problem is,
she only wants the best for us.
The first to deal with dear mother,
she knows it can be rough.

My father's problem is,
he believes he has to be tough.
That he alone can hold it all together,
but we know he's had enough.

My younger sister's problem is,
she's too ******* sweet.
She knows this family will ruin her,
so she clings to any form of release.
She's invariably bound to lose it,
so she does so all the more desperately.

My family has problems.
Clearly, it's plain to see.
I love them anyway,
and I'll try my best to share our story.
I feel it's my destiny.

My mother's problem is,
that we blame her for all of our problems,
and despite all of our insistences,
she makes no attempt to solve them.

"I don't go to any university.
I'm a student of the Universe.
Life is my major."

"Life's a wave man.
You just gotta ride it.
Try to hang ten."

"The gnarliest of rides tend to be the most radical."

"That guy's caught in a riptide.
He's trying to fight the current,
but all's he gotta do is swim to the side."

"Sometimes a wave will crash and smash you against the shore,
and you get cut up by the shells and sand,
but you can't give up.
Just gotta get back out there and try to ride again."

"Save your highways and byways.
I'm a roadside diner where everything is served Sunny Side Up."

Here's to you getting whatever it was that you wanted.
Here's to me never figuring it out.

I once knew a man
who said,
"Invest while you can."
I told him I didn't have any money.
"Well, I can't help you then."

I once met this kid
who told me his sins.
I couldn't say why,
I hardly knew him.
"You've a trustworthy face,
and you're leaving tomorrow."
But I never asked to be burdened by his sorrow.

I once loved a girl
who became my world.
I clung to her every single last word.
Then she was gone
to leave me in silence.
I replaced it with noises of hatred and violence.

I once had a choice
to make something new,
but I still hear her voice
telling me what to do.

I once spent a night
with a spirited punk.
Willful and passionate,
but down on his luck.
We painted the town red
and made Down the new Up.

I once read a book
that spelled out my life.
A real page turner,
though I know it's all lies.

Someone once told me
not to live in the past.
"Be here right now,
the future comes fast."
But I often look back
to cry or to laugh,
and on nights such as these
I'll write epitaphs.

Hey you with your thinky pain,
your existential crises,
your broken bleeding heart beating in vain.
Hey you!
I say, hey!

Stop being a ****.

I have no friends,
and all of the ones that I do have
don't like me very much.
Maybe it's because I go around telling all of my friends that I have no friends,
which is probably a **** move.

Hide in obscurity.
Cryptic visage.
Anonymous shimmer.
Arcane mirage.

Be the enigma.
Wear the unknown.
Always a question mark.
Forever alone.

Left the bar to run home real quick because I couldn't shake the thought that maybe I'd left the oven on.

I didn't.

Sluiced in the veins through a pinprick,
thick blood spills back with the remnants of disastrous destiny.
Telekinetics pour out through gaps in the brain with a voice that booms,
"You'll never get away from this."

But here's the part where it slips into the space where no one can contain this wholesome emptiness.
Here as one and all together in the void where we'll swim forever.

Splashed at the flesh with a wrath that can't be contained.
Wholesome emptiness sluiced in the veins.
A ripped up fate whose tattered remains blow in the wind
in a secret coded pattern that can't be interpreted without telekinesis.

But here's the part where it's all torn apart,
in irregular rhythms like the beating of your heart that stops and starts,
and starts, and stops, and stops, and stops.

Here as none and all of no one,
a thick void to drown in forever.
A voice that screams in scattered patterns:
"You'll never get away from this."

Now write me off to this full mooned night
There's no one left to check this flight
I'll leave you all on the cold hard ground
And fly into a new dawn's light

But I go alone
As you stand in stone
And now my speed is slowing down

Because what's the point
Of going there
If there's no one else around

I think I'd rather stay with you
Under your wing
All safe and sound

I'd rather take a walk with you
Than to get lost and never found

Through the park
And through the dark
And through the night, til we see day

This may be better than aimless flight
I think this is where I'll stay
It took a lot of wrongs to find one right
Thank you for showing me the way

Thirty different versions
of the same kind of person.
I'm sick of repetitious conversation,
so go on and call me pretentious.
I always find grounds for contention
when it comes to dealing with this thirty-fold type of predictable person.
It's just not worth it!

Now I'm the one who's wrong,
because I've heard your whole life played out
in a four and a half minute long song.
Just let three more foreshadowed words fall from your tongue,
and I swear to god,
I'm gone.

I know when you're young
surviving seems contingent on donning a disguise,
but I've spent the second half of my life learning how to take it off.
Meanwhile, yours has only become more latched on;
to the point where your true face and the fake are one.
All you've got left is that gaudily painted on expression.
I swear to god,
I'm done.

Wait, I swear I've felt this all before.
That thought followed by this scenery.
My idea of what she may have thought of me while I walked out the door.
This tree,
and how it depresses me.
I swear I've seen it all before.
Perhaps it was in a dream.
Maybe I'm living in a repeated pattern of the same old thing.
Just another thread woven inside of a tapestry.

There's too much gray for it to be appealing,
with the only color coming from the heart that I am stealing.
Just the beginning of a romance that I will never be forgiven.
These branches try to trap me with a guilt I'm not admitting.

Wait, I swear I've said there will be no more.
I've put it all behind me.
I'll find something else to live for.

Then suffocated by a rope made of that same old tapestry.
I swear I've strangled myself before.
Twitching on the carpet,
I've died a thousand times and more.

These trees offer to hang me
with gracious low-lying branches.
I deny them all again.
Not tonight,
but one day you'll get your chances.

Wait, why do I keep walking down the same old streets?
Is it some mad hope of running into the younger version of me?
Perhaps I already have in some half-remembered dream.
I'm haunted by these trees and plagued by memories.

I swear I've felt it all before.
Fumbling for my keys in order to get through the door.
Stumbling to my bed in a drunken stupor.
How the hell did I get here?
What am I living for?

Somewhere between Gluttony and Vainity, I suppose.