I fell asleep in the branches of a cypress tree,
while I heard the barks of the hounds that are after me.
In my dreams I flew away on golden wings,
but a bullhorn brought me back to reality.

"We know that you're up there.
We know that you're hurt.
Why don't you climb down and let us treat your wounds."

"I'm comfortable here,
and halfway to the moon.
Why don't you *******?
I won't be down anytime soon."

"We're here because your family is worried about you.
They don't know where you are.
We're here to help you!"

"Nothing you say can help me now!
I'm here to stay; I'm not coming down!"

I hope skunk ape comes to tear you apart.
Serves you right for trespassing in his swamp.
Leave me alone,
my problems are my own.
I hope the ghost of Osceola comes to haunt your home.

"We're not going to leave.
Climb down while you can.
Don't make us come up there.
We can force this to end."

He climbed down all ****** with holes in his pants.
They arrested him on charges of public disturbance.

Stupid ******* ****, eats my ****, I'm so sick of it.
How everyone complains how the end is near but
To me they're all just victims who don't know how to deal with the
Here and now
The lost and found
It's that tiny little difference that makes it all worth while
Do you learn from the mistakes that your convictions dictate?
The inevitable errors that you're bound to make
Who's to blame for everything that is not the same
Which are only familiar habits that have stuck in our brain
To align
The planets in a way we see fit
And that's just fine
But baby, it still eats my ****

Trees melted in the sun
and I realized that you are not the one to save me.
Nothing ever said or done will be enough to erase what I felt
while the earth surged up inside.
Thirty-six hours never felt so long.
I lived and died so many times.
I never knew I loved this song
until I heard you sing it.
A constant ring inside my head.
My crime now is to bring it back.
Cut off but don't leave any slack.
I swear my middle self was dead.
Your outer brought me back to life.
I hadn't felt it in so long.
I didn't think I'd ever hear it again.

and some people will, but most people won't.
I think that you might. Do you though?
I'll wish that you would.
I really do hope so.

The craziest thing about a bridge is how it connects two things that have no business being connected.

It's interesting, the informational and cultural exchanges that result from such a bridging.

("Interesting" is an antisemantical word: void of meaning. Just filler, really. It doesn't mean anything.)

A bridge is a tool of conquest: allowing one land access to another, so that it may be subjugated.

A platform for seemingly well-meaning goats to impale and destroy any gatekeeping trolls.

And that's it.
And this is it.
Left alone in an unfamiliar room;
Trying hard not to feel tragic.

Yea, I might stay up,
But I won't do anything indecent.
I can't think too clearly with this constant ringing in my head.
Despite this.
In sight of this.
Blindsided by this.

I wish.

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.

It takes guts to hang yourself by your own intestines.

To have felt this way all of the time,
a(nd) stranger still,
to leave (it) behind.
To enter a place unrestrained by time.
The cost of a ticket,
one price only -
your mind.

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

His to act on her prone back
with a rope attached to circumvent that.
Because who knew there was always a way out?
Another definite reason to second question double doubt.
I've had enough to fill my quota with or without squared facts.
Cubed into four dimensions to contain the bouncing reflected stream of light that cuts through every fine line drawn by pinpoint pens.
The ink is solid but the tips's worn thin.
I'm about to dive right in,
with seven limbs minus two and a half.
Crack the sphere that's not welcome here with a hammer and a tack.
I've circulated every memo.
Can you remember that every word read gets retained in that blank black back space that hides beneath every keyboard key?
Wait, scratch that.
Hit delete.

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.

There is something more
I know that I have glimpsed
Because I've been here before

Something beyond
Your blinks and your yawn
A whole world waits with its arms wide open
Calling our names
Beckoning us
To stop playing these games
To pick up something real
And hold with patience until it begins to glow
To shine a light on our faces that we have never tasted before

So sweet and saccharine serene
It sends our minds reeling
Careening through our dreams
Picking up the trails of scents that we've always claimed to have seen

Fulfill those desires
Build empires out of your feelings
Brick of experience upon nostalgic recollections of that time
When I saw through the ceiling
I felt your heart beating
Keeping pace with mine
Just an illusion of one global mind
Feeling every feeling ever felt before all at once
Realizing what it is like to be realized
Knowing the beauty behind smiles
And the magic in laughs
Wanting to say everything
And then take it all back

This single serving reflection cracks beneath all the weight
And once we put it all together
We realize the stakes
So make yours with You
And I'll make mine with Me
Then we'll throw them at each other
For all eternity

A man of syntax and punctuation,
Though not so keen on grammar,
Used the most wonderful words in conversation,
But pronounced them all with a stammer.

Seemingly one-dimensional,
But deeply layered with meaning.
He tore the hearts out of sheep
Just to leave them there bleating.

To death, in one breath, he could swim there and back
With his hair a little more white,
And his lungs much more black.

Like smoking, on fire, his one true desire
Was to burn himself out before his freshness expired.

Now here he lies
All still with closed eyes.
I can't help from thinking he got what he wanted when he died.
I hope he's finally found the answers that he couldn't when he was alive.

I'm in love with a lesbian;
I love when she laughs.
I'm in love with a straight man.
I'm in love with a ***.
I'm in love with a totally pretentious ***;
always self-flattering - I love how he brags.
I'm in love with a shy girl who hardly says a thing.
Quiet as a mouse,
but oh when she sings!
I'm in love with a dancer whose movements are poetry.
I'm in love with an artist who's modestly vain.
I am completely in love with a rationalist
if only because he's clearly insane.
I'm in love with a girl who's crazy about God.
I'm in love with another who spoils her dog.
I'm in love with the world when it's not bearing down on me.
Love as far as the eye can see.
I am in love with myself -
it feels good and true,
but more than anyone,
I'm in love with you!

I look onto the world,
and all that I can see
are tales of woe, success, heroes,
love, loss, pain, and tragedy.

I look back on my life
and see it just the same.
All of it so beautiful,
yet commonplace and plain.

I look onto the world,
and it looks back on me.
All that I can see,
all of it and everything;
nothing more than poetry.

Exhausted
I have done to myself
a beating worth giving to somebody else
Someone I used to know. . .

Inducted
Unceremoniously but proper
Into a world pushed out of a stopper

Oh, how I used to know
the shine of your skin in a moonlit glow
the pause of your chest after taking in breath
Awaiting the exquisite,
Inexorable,
Exhale

Where I too would exude from your abysmally beautiful depths
to fall gracelessly down frosted wrought iron steps
to land in a mangled heap of electrified fear
Wishing frantically
that your faraway ears may hear
the call of my heavy falling tears.

For years
Four years
the end had loomed near
but I pushed it away
Awaiting the day
When I would exhaust all the words I had left to say

It never came
It never does
So what you're left with ought to be enough
but if it's not
then stop right then
Quit right there
You can't hold it in
Breathe out your tainted air

I'll deflate myself to gas you up,
because my end state is devastation,
but you could be happy/healthy/etc.

Not drunk enough to stew tonight
Not true enough to be so right
Not brave enough to use this knife

It all falls back on you

Not tall enough to see above
Not sick enough to **** a dove
Not dumb enough . . .
To love

Too much of one to see through the other
Too many habits to blame on your mother
Too selfish to share with another
Gather enough sheets to . . .
Smother

It all falls back on you
These failed attempts to cut through
These mistakes
Regrets
These high stake
Secrets

Flush them out
Flush them out
Flush them out

These feelings
Are chores
These habits
They bore

Too scared to change
Too tired to run away
Get so caught up in a sentimental sway
These moments
Please stay
Please stay
Don't leave me . . .

Fade away

Give it up
these trials, these files, this documentation of failures
These feelings
hit ceilings
which trap them all inside

These hooks
These sinkers
These dark and lonely bleachers

sit through as the world slips through your fingers
and die

These sounds
these bugs
these mind destroying drugs

these sights
these fights
when's enough enough

hold tight
ignite
these fires behind your eyes

This touch
too much
let go and fade away

let go and fade away

and when they ask you all to stay

let go and fade away

and when they throw you in the fray

let go and fade away

and when they say
don't go
don't stray
stay here and we will pray
For you

to pull through
to find another way

smile wide
feel pride
and go and seize the day

It slides
You try
and struggle to hold tight
It fights, it cries
It screams and then it dies
let go
Goodbye
Now watch it fade away

I always expect the worst from people.

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.

Things fall off these shelves as if fulfilling their innermost secret desires to rest somewhere else.
We take these things and arrange them with the utmost care
Hoping to leave an impression on anyone wanton enough to stare
"Look at my Creation!
Admire my eye for detail
My magnificent use of composition
The originality
It's so unique
I take these things and make something which all the starved seek
This juxtaposition of so many different things
My inspiration?
Well, really, it's just a physical manifestation of everything that makes up me
Everything is a self portrait, if you know what I mean"
wink wink
But these things, they think; HOW DARE HE!
and in your sleep
they fall from the mirror
to drown down the sink
in order to be free from your artistic tyranny

There is a place that we don't like to revisit.
A topic that perpetually stays off limits,
but every now and then,
stars in space align in such a way
that cause us to relive it.

"If you're the least bit sensitive, this world will eat you alive."
Is it any wonder then that so many of us want to die?
But I gave up a long time ago on suicide
Such an ignoble way to say goodbye

So if I must go, I want to be beaten by some ******* while defending a woman's honor
Shot by an oppressive father for attempting to liberate his daughter
Gunned down by the government for standing up for the rights of another
I guess you could say,
I have dreams of becoming a martyr

"Only the good die young"
Only through self-sacrifice can you become
Deeply ingrained in humanities' collective brain
I want to make a difference
Before I grow old and insane

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Lincoln
JFK
Jesus Christ
Gandhi
Joan of Arc
Tecumseh
And then there's Socrates

Somebody help me, help me please
I want so badly to die for the sake of a belief
But it's all so ****** up now
Twisted and torn
Sometimes I wish that I was never born

And there have been others who felt the same way
Vincent Van Gogh
Rothko
And Hemingway

I know it's not fair of me to say
They all lead lives wrought with such pain

Like Bradley Nowell
And Kurt Cobain
Some saw it coming
Like Mark Twain

Freedom really is a double-edged sword
After Jack Parsons blew up he left us his words
His mom OD'd shortly after having heard
Greatness can only last so long in this world

And what of Albert Camus?
Was it really unplanned?
And that poor old Nietzsche
Came so unglued at the end

And fate is really something
How can we comprehend
Some lives are surely doomed
From the moment they begin

When I was much younger,
and tried to picture Our Father,
for some reason, I always thought of my own:

God is a man with a dark red tan,
pale blue eyes, and big strong hands.
God is a guy with a hammer on his thigh,
hanging from a carpenter's belt
above blue-jeaned legs.
He wears a T-shirt that I think once used to be grey,
but faded by the sun to an almost off-white.
He wears a mesh navy cap. The one He always wore.
The one he got from his days as a volunteer fire-fighter.
The only thing I pictured differently was the hair:
Curlier, and instead of being brown,
it was golden blonde.

I used to see my dad when I'd think about God.
In many ways, I still do.

My hubris will be my downfall;
knowing this might help.

I've been giving my Hit Points away in exhange for a cheat that will grant me invulnerability.

When I was six I ate a fish that tasted like my future,
and presently I'm telling her that things are starting to feel unreal again.
"Shhhhhh.
Rest your twisted head."
I said she gave me this wicked vessel,
and that I hate her for it.
She said,
"I know darling.
That's why you're my favorite."

I understand that you're working ******* your karma;
that you're toiling toward keeping that feather weighing more than your heart.
I get that you somehow get off on going above and beyond what other people expect of you after you've agreed to do something for them.
(Though you should know, that because you do it every time, they always expect you to.)
I can clearly see that you've been collecting good deeds in order to redeem them at the end of this thing for a better seat to whatever the hell it is that you think is going to happen;
that you treat each one as an eon shaved off of the wait time you'll have to spend in the line to get into heaven.
No really, I get it.
It's your thing, your MO; your shtick.
But me personally,
I've got better things to do than bend over backwards for opportunists.

This isn't a romance.
It's hardly even a friendship.

When I was very young,
my biggest fear was of being possessed by a demon.
Once I realized that demons are just a superstitious figment of a self-loathing imagination,
my biggest fear became of going crazy.
Once I realized that "crazy" was just a political term used to categorize those who live outside the social norm,
my biggest fear then became of dying alone.
When I realized that I'd always carry the memory of everyone who had ever made an impact on me,
I found out that life is profoundly beautiful,
and I'm no longer afraid to die.

You're looking mighty fine this evening lady
Keep your Soul, but your flesh will be mine
Peeping through the holes where you used to have eyes
Drop dead gorgeous face perched on top of severed spine
You can't keep those precious things forever

God has the day,
But this is the time when the Devil plays
Cracked crow skulls call on the night fall
Broken fingernails
Hear the Nightingale
Hear the ghouls' wail
Your face is pale

Did you hear the one about the mental patient?
They stuck a severed hand in her bed
When it was lights out the screaming started
Shrill shrieks to slash pleasant dreams and turn all things into Nightmares
Patients in neighboring rooms took up a chorus of wailing
The halls vibrated with violent horror
The two culprits shivered
Then, suddenly
Silence
Deafening silence
Paralyzing silence
Silence so deep you'd hardly believe that you weren't asleep if it weren't for the sound of your own heart beat
The pranksters stared at each other
Placed a hand on the ****
And with a growing sense of foreboding
They turned the **** and let the door swing open

There, crouched in the corner
Was a grotesque thing with eyes and hair of stark white
Twisted into a banshee by her inescapable fright
And she was biting at something gripped tight in her hands
Gnawing at the severed one they had placed in her bed
Her lips and teeth were stained blood red

There's nothing to fear but the fear of the dead
There are no monsters but the ones in our head
Give me peace
Give me God
Let me walk
Through the fog
But when things go bump in the night and shadows dance on the walls
And things rise up from the swamps and the bogs
And phantoms screech and owls watch
I'll maintain my fear of the dark

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.

Between each and every line.
Feelings can build monuments,
as they can be our own demise.

Love love love love love love love.
I live to love and love to live.
I'm in love, right now, with this moment,
and everything.

My body is a vessel
A teapot, if you will
With my spirit boiling deep inside
Drink from it if it soothes you

And if it suits you
Then wear it with pride
I bare my scars with arms wide open
To embrace you when you need it
Warm you up when you feel frozen

Because truth be told
This life can be cold
And I'm so tired of shivering
So let's wake up, and spread this love
It's a message worth delivering

Sometimes I burn with passion
It makes me cry and think I'm crazy
But it also makes me feel alive
Let's start this fire, baby

Because passion is where it's at
We'll take our freedom back
What's that? You've got a great idea?
Oh yea, let's all do that!

Distance makes the heart grow fonder,
and proximity can make you wonder how you ever built it up so be some kind of cure-all universal life-problem-solver.
But when reality falls short of fantasy,
that's where all of the life-lessons are found.

The majority of them seem to be along the lines of:

Have you ever regretted a decision before you've made it?
I'm sure there's a medical condition named for it.
I forget what it is.

I've got to drown one last time before I can swim.
Sink down into the whirlpool and pass through the eye.
Feel those winds on my face under a stormy sky.
Curse the gods with a dizzy head while clinging to life.
See it flash before me in all its bliss, pain, and strife.

Just one more time.
One. More. Time.

Before I can come out clean and dry on the other side,
to finally leave that maelstrom behind
for good.

the notes rise up with the flames
And I smolder in the sound
Feel it shimmering
Warmth from inside out

As if we are connected
to everything around
floating with the fire
my feet have left the ground

and I burn

Play that song I want to hear
You play it oh so well
friends, and fire, and bottle near
I feel much better now

the glow will light our faces
This dark world will turn bright
Here we are for this one
We'll feel alive tonight

And I burn