Is that you / Your eyes slowly fading?

After the stereo (flip that vinyl over)
After the **** hits (burbleburbleburble)
After the subway (next stop Bwahstan Gahden, Bwahstan Gahden)
After bolting down Burger King  (♪ Have it your way... ♫)
        We entered the garden.

Is that you / Your mind full of tears?
Is that you / Searching for a good time?
Is that you / Waiting for all these years?

Santana looked so small way down there on stage from our upper balcony seats, especially Chepito, lit by lurid 70's arena-lights. They seemed disproportionate to the ear-splitting amplification from towering walls of matte-black speakers, amidst  sparklers, firecrackers, with **** wafting over legions of high school students. I can't recall the songs, just the rhythm. When the smoke cleared, ears dazed and ringing, the harsh lights flooded several hundred young persons exiting the garden for the subway.

Is that you / Looking 'cross the ocean
Is that you / Thinking nothing's really there?

J. was still sitting in his seat. Come on. We gotta go.
But my friend J. looked lost, vacant.
Come on J, the trains stop running soon let's go!  
J. did not respond. He leaned forward and vomited on the cement floor between his feet.

Is that you / Waiting for the sunshine?
Is that you / When all you see is glare?

Scars
mean
    you're
           no
             longer
           bleeding
             out.

                               Scars
                                   mean
                                        that
                                          you
                                       healed.

                                                        ­So
                                                      never
                                                      be        ­                      .                                          ­   ashamed
                                                             or afraid
                                                          ­      of scars.

If all scars were purple
And all bruises red
And we could pour out
All the pain in our heads

If people were rabbits
And rabbits were dead
And all scars were purple
And all bruises red –

Would people be purple?
Would rabbits be dead?
Is it bruises that **** us,
Or scars to the head?

What is it that tortures us,
Leaves us all writhing?
What makes us stop living
And start just surviving?

What monster pursues us –
What ghastly condition?
The one deep within us;
The sick apparition.

This torturous bubble
From deep in our heart
Wells up, overwhelms us
And tears us apart.

My echo wont reply for me.
My reflection will not look at me.
My shadow does not walk with me.
My footsteps will not follow me.

I lost myself to someone else.

And they never gave me back.

It's as if we
Were
Destined to meet
There's no me
Pleading for a question
You just give me
Satisfaction
Love thats not physical
Yet I can feel it
My heart soften

All too familiar...
I have been here not too long ago.

I had dug my heels deep...
I had tasted the moist that hung stale.
Dreaded every next step,
knowing then as I know now...
That again I would fail.

This road well travelled...
Will draw much more,
if not the same.
But I own this endless stretch,
I'll embrace it with discomfort...
For here is the grave that bears my name.

You readers, who visit these pages
are a fan-base that rarely engages.
So until you hit like,
you can all take a hike;
for I'm paid in poetical wages.