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Let's get this straight, I understand
I've likely the leading role
Or at least lent a pivotal hand
At thwarting myself at every go

Contrary unintentionally
Speaking with nothing to say
Yet saying it anyway
To all in ear shots dismay

Bless this belligerent heart
Too stubborn to be told
That this **** is getting really old
If this was my first hand I'd fold

Dawn stole upon us
Before anybody noticed
Now, before my debts are called in
Not even a pair, yet I'm all in

After all this time I'd like to believe
That I'm at least being honest with me
No way to really know, unfortunately
The whole idea is me lying to me

So why does this seem like a mistake
Aftertaste of nostalgia in my mouth
I made a promise I don't intend to break
When I said forever I meant it, for goodness sake

Regret is a cruel master
With the voice of my own cruel laughter
Better that than complacency
Luring me back to disaster

I just keep thinking out loud
I need to quit while I'm behind
Wish I could lose what I found
when I lost what was left of my mind

More than whether or not to be,
What matters to me is the quality
Your absence the pinnacle detractor
And the only one I seem to factor

So where does that leave me?
Alone but finally free

Of the facets to your bespoke affection,
The one that bothers me the closest to none,
Your lack of credulity in my contrition
Fickle as the winter sun
No faith, even less appreciation

So where does that leave me?
Just myself left to interrogate

So where does that leave me?
Praying I'm the man I claim to be

Find it in you, yet another try
Closed your eyes before I could shine
These things tend to take their time
And I know I have taken mine

How cruel, all your efforts dashed
A check, written, signed, never cashed
Here I am, finally worth a half a ****
Your liquid investment, alas

So where does that leave me?
Where does that leave me?
I'm searching for some corroboration
Someone to confirm or deny
My dubious storyboard and timeline

I'm looking for some semblance of consensus
Perhaps it's my skeptical nature
But I suspect my remembrances of bias

Just one thumbs up from someone
Following along as I write the chronicles of me
It's not my intention to be writing fiction
But it doesn't take both eyes to see
My conflict of interest

The directors cut
Cutting room floor flooded

I've been selling myself these same stories
Come to realize they may have changed
I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt
But who else is there to blame?


I can already see
In my false memory
My fading life, dwindling body
Alone and nobody to agree
And some parts of this strange tale just don't seem likely

There's no way I'm the only one
With a growing suspicion

What if I made the whole thing up
Entire chapters suspicious
Of circumspect veracity
If someone could just agree, maybe I am who I always thought I was

If it's to be my fantasy
What better protagonist than me
Compelling, I think you'll agree
If our hero is portrayed romantically

I've only got this one epic
One bespoken narrative
So I'll say unapologetically
I'll at least make it beguiling


In search of echoed affirmation  
In the shadows of my doubtful mind  
Tracing tales of time and tension  
Told from me, to myself, about I

What are the odds
A self-serving retrospective
Would bear resemblance to truth
Begrudge not this animal brain
Conflating anecdote and sooth

Composing the score
For the script my life wouldn't follow
Entertaining the thought
All of my nostalgia is hollow

What are the odds of a pristine retrospective
Dysfunctionally familiar with truth, close yet estranged
Contaminated with perspective
Subtly, conveniently rearranged

Written by, about, because of, and just for me
Liberties taken, no doubt, but to what degree
Conflict of interest, Motive, opportunity
Faulty eyewitness testimony

Oddly enough, contrarily
Benefit of the doubt notwithstanding
Even though I'm sure mine is compromised
I still seem to be able to spot your lies

Retrace my steps, backpedal
Identify the moment or milestone
The path I've laid and the steps I've made
Diverged, pivotally, so I pivot again
Last time I crashed and burned
The first time I knew it was earned
I was baptized in a revelation
Introspective initiation
Projecting upon what was once pure
Unconscious transmutation
To pure ingratiation
Innoculation sounds absurd
Alchemical agent

Because I was so wrong
Have been for so long

Left everything in tatters
At least everything that matters

I no longer wish to be right
I've fallen in with another tribe
I'm stronger and wiser and kinder than I ever thought I was
Having thwarted your attempt to raze my hard-won self-worth

This is me not accepting your apology
This is the benefit of the doubt, given freely
Admitting I'd likely have done the same if it were me
Pigeonholed as the villain, wrested back your agency

But it cost me
It crushed me
Pulverized me
I still bleed
Given exactly what I never knew I need

To keep me humble
Remind me of my stupidity
Prone to romance as I am
I somehow thought that some portion of this would be easy

Final ribbon of naive rhetoric dissipates
Doesn't take a prophet to know what comes next
The regret, the lament, the intent
To do it better given one more chance

Tell me if you even know
Would you wish your fate upon another
Take a second to reflect
Is your life more regrettable than your brother

Are the fruits of your *****
Worth grinding your hands to the bone
Knowing that your toil is unseen
Your sacrifice will never be known

Now we strike to the heart of it
I can't seem to give a straight answer
Hypothetically, figuratively
Passive-aggressively
The way that I swore I wouldn't be
Avoiding the subject so studiously

So here's the skinny
Let's get down to the nitty gritty
I couldn't stop loving you if I tried
And I try just that every night
Transmute this guilt into pride
Lamentation to exulation
insecurity to honesty
Eros into agape
One moment's objective view
I'm indistinguishable from you

One day I'll walk away
Without another word
I'm sure right now it seems absurd

My eyes will be miles away
For once nothing to say
Buckling 'neath the karma I have earned
Sol, rouses, stirring, grasping towards her throne,
Caught in baleful study
Head cocked, surveying my path of egress,
Set my weight, triangulate, concresce

Feel my brow furrow, biding, building to the frequency.
Coiled like a feline, muscles bunched, a spring for a spine.
Buffeted ****** by deafening, pineal threnody.
Comb through serpentine fibrous spacetime.

My hand, ****** forth, met a tapestry's weave,
So elegant, delicate I neglected to breathe.
A skipped stone rippling the pristine sheen,
The thrum of all that has been or ever could be

Each exultant stride at least a continent wide,
I'd falter if I thought past this breath, this vitreous tide.
4th dimension superimposed upon the back of my eyes.

Resigned this is likely a trick of my mind.
Yet here I am with a fistful of sky, no idea why.
Nothings ever felt so ****** natural and right.

The sheer absurdity never enters my mind;
Ear to ear smile, observer grinning in kind

Momentum compounds, expounds, amygdala mine!
Clap goes the sound barrier somewhere far behind.

Skip from precipice to peak, Cascadian vertebrae scudding by
A wild hair, a skip-step, a notion, a temporal sigh

Suddenly, subtly blooms ultraviolet
Scoff at gravity, if not broken, to my will bent.

In orbit briefly, once again baffled by my ignorance,
Why is moot, when is of no consequence
Amidst the glisten, visible to one who would look
Destiny unfurls to and fro, an open, endless book

Breach the veil, the first gasp of sight,
Can't seem to find the limit to my newfound might.
Causality's chains, once anchored so tight,
Dissolved in the dance of before and after's plight.

Rhetoric unravels, with all that I know
Eternity's flow freed of its arrow.
Meaning unmoored, adrift in the vast,
Deepening resonance, harmony at last.

From within the quagmire, a rhythm did start,
Overture bespoke, for each infinitesimal heart.
No longer one mote, but a note in the score,
entwined, inextricably, undiscernable, we, once more.
Brian Buttlicker Feb 2021
I'm clearly so forgettable
To me it's SO regrettable
That I go from ear to ear
This is my worst fear

When we're gone and dust
It seems we're just lust
Not needed, not wanted
And destined to be the one that's haunted

Never be the one
Like I am
Accept that you're naught
Like I am

I'd FIGHT I'd struggle and bleed
To be not him

But here I am
The aging fading memory
Brian Buttlicker Feb 2021
I haven't had a bad night in a while
Gosh... It's like I'm making a new file
Nobody cares
Nobodys there
Maybe I
Should learn to file
I'm not scared
But I realize
I'm merely there
My most precious
Doesn't care
And I'm just
Here for a while

I suppose I'll live
I think I have more to give
Receiving is a gift
One that I cannot lift

I can look down
I can look up
But all I see
Is when I **** up

I even hate my words
Maybe that's what I deserve
Brian Buttlicker Feb 2021
Today was great!
I learned something
I spoke to my most precious
I was berated
I was downgraded
I was hated
Hurt my own feelings
Heard my own feelings
It was a terrible day

I achieved
I perceived
I...... Leaved
Perhaps she was write
Maybe I'm *****
I can definitely attest
Even put to the test
I don't give a ****
And don't blame it on luck

I believe I am finally beginning to understand
The pathetic absolution of man

But I still stand
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