Occupation is such a daunting task.
The ironclad God swears up and down
That he's not asking me to jump into a dragon's mouth.

Blame me, the thing with the experience
The tacit pact among the angels
To tear it down, tear it down.

You didn't write such scathing songs,
Between your teeth, it was about a girl.
She did you wrong, and did you wrong.
Can't even see her crooked steps.

Well it's the world that's crooked, not me
And I want to hear you out
In court of law,
But we are sitting in a dragon's maw,
And noticing retracted claws
Could be of use to scrape and brawl
And make our own way, rect and raw
And that's our job here, after all--
To make a stand so strong and tall!
Yet all we do is hem and haw
While manifesting every flaw,
And now I cast my eyes in awe
To see my fatal friend's been mauled
The sherpa of my love who hauled
Us both up Everest, hear my call!
You were the only thing I saw
The novel taste of ripe pawpaw
Who drop their fruit in early fall
...
So sitting in that dragon's jaw
My job would be to lay there, sprawled
Into the stomach, break and fall
But until then, I dream
And draw.

You're a stone like the moon
Mottled with fated freckles
Nestled in her hand, feeling the vibrations of an alien language

We're talking about what an idiot you are.
Foggy mornings, lost in thought
Pizza and ranch dressing for breakfast.
Pajama pants, dewy grass
The cream and sugar coffee palette bath,
And...
Sink.

The wide plane of stratus drifting overhead
Like the biggest, silliest hat in the universe.

You're an ape wearing fuzzy socks.
And you're best friends with a dog.
You're a polyp lost in a storm of thoughts.
You're a garden full of moss.

You're a dreamer with a purpose.
You're a singer in a band.
You're a trekker on a journey,
You're a stone inside my hand.

Just a little light
That pulls itself in place
She can she can't
Who would want
To be this way?

In this we drowned
Not enough to go around
With cursed lips
In the upside-down

Broken concepts
Litter the floor
I can't write a poem
Who's it for?

Impossible, the reality
Shrinking me
My hungry dream

I need to leave,
The music's dead
It's all in my head
It's all in my head

There's nothing you can do to make it right
All we ever could afford is a bleeding dream
And my mind is in abyssal depths tonight
With all the helpless light to keep me company

We're lost forever,
Secret death
You said we won
But I'm seeing red

Cause no one's gonna hear me when I'm screaming for an answer,
And I'm drowning at the bottom of the sea

Captain, you're insane
You've got a look in your eye
You've got a deathwish in your
Broken mind
You've got a world to unexplain

*******, lonely God
And with a hopeless nod
You're gonna write it off
So just **** your pride
And deconstruct your brain

I'm in a world of pain

Captain, you're insane.

There's nothing we can do to save you now
When you're petrified, you're a sinking stone
And I don't even know if it floats
Cause all these lonely boats are just sinking slow

Between the stars and into nothing
Emptiness is coming
Loosening the skin from my bones

Captain, you're insane
You've got a look in your eye
You've got a deathwish in your
Broken mind
You've got a world to unexplain

*******, lonely God
And with a hopeless nod
You're gonna write it off
So just **** your pride
And deconstruct your brain

I'm in a world of pain

Captain, you're insane.

Fever's setting in
I'm alone for all of time
Head is jutting out
Without a plan or a lifeline

Vessel of the world,
Navigation was a lie!
What am I to do
Without a plan for a lifeline?

I guess that I'll just wait around
And die

Captain, you're insane
You've got a look in your eye
You've got a deathwish in your
Broken mind
You've got a world to unexplain

*******, lonely God
And with a hopeless nod
You're gonna write it off
So just **** your pride
And deconstruct your brain

I'm in a world of pain

Captain, you're in

Captain, you're insane
You've got a look in your eye
You've got a demon in your
Open mind
You've got a world to unexplain

*******, lonely God
And with a hopeless nod
You're gonna write it off
So just **** your pride
And deconstruct your brain

I'm in a world of shame

Captain, you're insane.

To the boy who cleans trash from his Texas neighborhood
And the next couple days notices heavier litter left by those demons
To the one who is pointedly NOT in Mayday Parade
But is too blessed to listen to all their songs
I need therapy
Therapy that I'll never receive

We'll see what we can do for you
And if it's never enough
Just shut the **** up

I know these times are hard for you.

Sometimes your vessel will glow with a music that's in-between
Rushing fugues of color
You can't make up God's mind

Your dials rotate under moonlight
What went wrong?
Why did you sleep on the roof of your house?

The perihelion draws sweat from your skin
We buried it in time
Cause we're cryptic kids in a tragic world,
Always leaving us a line.

Nobody knows you're here,
Just you
Distrustful of comfort.

We can't find a way to place it
We don't know what to do
Not in this moment
On this radio station between worlds

I can't be like you,
I'm not like these reflections
Swimming around me.

With shaking hands,
I realize the entire universe ends with me.
Somewhere else in time I fall to my knees
And cry the greatest and loneliest cry of all time.
But here, we whirr and buzz on. We talk talk talk when we're alone to keep this moving. Fibers come loose and fall to the ground every day.

It's red, love. The color you bleed. The color of apples.

It's orange. Like "A Lesson in Romantics"

It's yellow, like the sunlight in the morning.

And green, like the forest you've been courting.

It's blue, like the sky you're scared to look in.

And violet, like the flowers you brought home.

Don't you see, we can't exceed ourselves at all, so it's up up and away with love!
There's nowhere else to go but here
With gravity above.

I feel the forest growing into me.

Part of my body,
Seen from transcending peaks:

I am the reason for stands of trees,

I am the end of these violet leaves.

Compounded in time, their maceration
And evolution
Are constant, a nutrient stream.

My identity.

Seen from transcending peaks.

Little mites walk the giant canyons
Of my skin.

Cyanobacteria stow away
In the fabric of my backpack
And hitch a ride home
With me.

Decaying leaves and wild yeasts,
Red oak and wet clay,
Protozoans, insect larvae
And gametophytes season my plate.

Eyes that swing from tree to tree--
They are river deltas of another kind
What is flowing into them
Is kind, and it will never leave.

I am looking through the forest
For my identity.

I am looking, I am lost in the leaves

I have found my great reprieve.

I can feel the forest growing into me.

The relief of your faces
The force of your breaths
All that I trample, caress or ingest

The stone you expose
And what you conceal
Are pillars of fate
That make me real!

And you come with a fear of what I am.

I'll be your soil, and I'll be your seed
I'll be the depth of the light that you need

I'll carry forests, and mountains, and seas
I'll grow into you
Since you grew into me.