Let's stop mid-scream and steal a moment of sanity
Hold on to your vanities, your profanities
Let me help

Let me tell you a story
'Tis grim and gory

Follow me home, follow me home
Make me feel unsafe
Make me feel like prey
In this jungle of concrete and brick

Your judgements are bullets
With eyes for triggers
**** me.

Intentions, retentions, preventions
Our sinful innocence will be the end of us
We walk into burning buildings
Yet we are not fireproof

We have never been
Fireproof.

I drown in a sea of confusion
As I stare into nothing
As I worry about something, stirring my heart into a constant ache

I choke on the thoughts that suffocate me
My head aches as I struggle to breathe

I am chained, a free prisoner
I'm not locked up but close enough
Society is the prison
Expectations the key, dangling in front of me, keeping me in
Obligations, the shackles holding me in place

I am replaceable, and yet I am here
Shackled by a false sense of loyalty and regret
Soon these chains will transform into a noose
Around my neck
Awaiting the Executioner
The final step.

I can barely open my eyes
Can barely open my mind
Can barely fake a smile

Im not sad nor mad
Just depleted
Utterly defeated to this aching head

The tension rising in the back of my neck
Im slumped forward on my desk
Eyes open mind asleep
I silently admit defeat
As I smile
As I nod
Stifling a yawn
No, a sob

I sit up, grab a coffee cup
Feel the fake energy rush through my veins
Get through another day
My mind in overdrive
My thoughts faster than the speed limit
Unable to slow down

Work hard for the hall of fame
It's a shame, it's just out of arm's reach. You tell me: Persevere
You tell me, to hold on my dear

So I listen and then I go home
I am a mindless drone
I soar, rise and fall
Then float in between

Know what I mean?

So I wonder
At what point
Are we sacrificing too much?
Compromising too much?
And getting too little in return?

This espresso tastes like poison,
In spite of all I've added to cover the sweet bitterness

I want to release rather than increase
Release rather than increase

My mind is full, from my ears to my neck to my head,

A consistent pressure throbs
It robs me of peace
Of Mind

We all go through it
We are slaves
We are victims
Of long forgotten systems

We live to work, and work to live
Work to eat, and eat to work
An endless cycle of compromise

Open your eyes
Your senses
Smell the prosperity, the disparity
The paradox
Watch the rise of Pandora's Box

Feed, greed, need
I've planted the seeds of doubt
And watched them grow
Into luminous, prosperous trees

They are silhouettes against the sun
And against the backdrop of the moon

You live in a cocoon
Awaiting a metamorphosis that may or may never be
I live in a cocoon
Awaiting a metamorphosis that may
Or may never
Come

I feel it in my vertebrae
Where the discs are too close for comfort
An incessant knocking

I feel it
In every uncomfortable upright position
A constant
In a world of variables

The prescriptions are a dizzying temporary fix

Can you feel me?
Can you see my anatomy?
Or am I a quintessential silent scream?

Sleep is for the weak
Power through it
The escape is unwarranted

Give it a shot
Get under the influence
In congruence  
With the waking mind

Do you feel it?
No?
Keep going.

Caffeine, caffeine, sugar and caffeine
The underlying emotions
Unseen

Ouch
Do you feel that?
The devotion
Erosion
Do you hear that?
The commotion?
Boom.
The explosion?

The thoughts, heart
Eternal

Head heavy
Stay calm and steady
It’s just gravity

Get down.
Down down down
Drown
Why the frown?
Can you feel the water rising?
Slowly, menacing, suffocating?
Smile
Come on
Close your eyes
You just need a little compromise

Push harder
Faster
Stronger
Endure.
Sleep is for the weak.

The trees quiver in the cool winter winds,
Dancing silhouettes soaking in the rain

Analysis, analysis, paralysis, I will be the end of us
Incessant thoughts swirl through my mind. I cannot
Control their poison spreading through my veins,
To my nerve endings, shattering all illusions of control

We were birds soaring in the sunlit sky
Majestic, wings flutter and stabilize
Blinded by the sun, unaware
Of the details
High with adrenaline, on illusion

We are birds, shying away from the gray
Gloom of the winter sky when it is
About to rain.