I might deceive you for a while
Pull the wool over your eyes
It's nice and soft
It's not that often
But I think of her sometimes

Can you prepare for such a trap?
Lingering in the aftermath
Of a realization
Like an arrow through my heart

This isn't home!
You're killing everything you love
And don't you miss the way it was,
Or you might waste your precious time

This isn't home,
This isn't **-o-o-o-ome
And though you struggle and you fight
For me, I'm gone.

This isn't home.

I can help you start over
Just bend a little lower
We have learned this trick before

They say that nothing's new
But when I see your baby blues
I feel brand new again.

This isn't home.
You're killing everything you love
And don't you miss the way it was,
When you were young?

This isn't home
This isn't **, ah oh, uh o-ome
Now I'm starting to feel new again.

In a whole new way.

pensive instrumental breakdown

I think we might just be on to the same thing.

raining emo guitar

This isn't home.
This isn't ** o o o ome
Now I'm starting to feel new again

This isn't home
I let this go
And I think I might just break
Oh, won't you hold me as we're dying?

Don't brag, words are for the insecure
Bare your strength and weakness to the world in silence
People observe the prominent attributes
As you move across their world

It taints the schema in their minds
To have to boast at all

If you're lacking, give it slack
And sense out what is wrong
Look for ways to hone the skill
And build yourself up strong.

Cool beauty exudes from the skull with black tendrils
Inky like a writer, inky like angst but it slides over your skin when you go to touch it
Two brown eyes in bed
Loving on the world like a ***** animal
Loving it on a bike, over roots and streams

While poetry turns the sleek machinery works
The body is smooth and aesthetic
And even when the mind is jagged the voice is soft and considered
Turning this way and that
I have the audacity to call myself cute
And I love my place in the world.

But I want to **** it.
To teach you a lesson.
About judging people.
About letting them grow.
I want to leave my beautiful hair
Young and pathetic
Attached to a dead skull
Sever the promise I held from ever forming fully
Just to show you what you've done to me.

Even though I'm sure I could fix this
Even though so much of this is my fault
You have done ugly things to me,
Things you should be ashamed of.

I want to gather up the guts to end it all,
Because what I have left is pieces like glowing embers
And it hurts to rekindle this fire
In the rain.

Weeping wounds lie at the heart of the wellspring,
Whose acrid tears are the meal of a godless whorl

An accretion disk convinced of personality
A depersonalizing wreck envious of its own neck

Bearing witness to reflections in the collapsing medium that surrounds the head

And hands stretch out in the great magnetic core
Where breath can stay and peace is an object unto itself

But no one ever tries,
Because the shuddering has remembered the choking
And impossible securities have just been left behind
Like the longest path of stepping stones to a grave.

Tell me,
How do you feel about it?
The expression of feelings
Is a powerful force in the world.

And surely,
It will shape its twisted face.

Before you opened up for me, I was settling down--
Guard up, hopes down, trying to carve a life.

Before you came around, I was sharpening my knife.

Your skin was so pretty in the rain. But you were so far away
Our words caressed and sexed in that summer's air, teasing possibility

When we met, you were a scintillating mystery.

Now you've spread petals up close to my pupils
The depth of your fortune, the breadth of that garden...

My guards never sought so direct a pardon!

Because you are the sweetest thing,
So befitting me.
And you've been a target of pain and misery,
But you've met it with strength.
And you've never been loved
The way that I'm loving
You.

Keep those stars apart, D---
Keep them shining bright so I can call them cruel when I know them to be too kind,
I'm sure.

How it felt to lose a piece of yourself in love!
That ******* sting that keeps our hearts knocking on heaven's door

These are things that spit out words like drunk fossils or adopted-out children
Things which can only be experienced and then scattered
So I should stop trying to write you down and hold you up for the world to see
And instead let this poem be an organism in its own right

So when did you realize you were an open wound in the universe?
Do you consider how using your blood for the wrong thing is a form of internal bleeding?
And did you ever really bleed, or was it all internalized and used in the end?

Who was your lover with devil horns and angel wings?
Have you ever realized you are already dead?
Tell me, has a cold accountant ever murdered your friends and usurped the throne of your mind?

Oh trust me, you had to die so many times for no reason:
To get to you. Look around, they are all dead besides you. You are just seeing what you've already done.

But oh,
Do you disagree?

Me too.

Right, it gets pretty good
But it's still not what you wanted
And you're alone
Forced to compromise
Oh, you're always such a whiner.

It gets pretty good, trust me
You will learn to love your work
But I don't want this bittersweet
Reality you gave me

I am forced, by fear, to love you
And I'm the only one here dreaming.

And you got me so excited
As a kid, I felt invited

But you knew where it would get us
In this predetermined future
And you kept it from the child
Knowing he'd be disappointed

I trust that it gets better
But it's still not what I wanted
Wasted 20's
Broken dreams
And the forces stir up demons

Who will never understand
How they're just properties emergent
And life is bleak
And God is lame, capable of all things

I am your doll, your marionette
Held captive on this island of insecurity
Forced compliance stirs up within me
An ugly anger
Which must be stifled.

When my parts don't work right
And the show doesn't go as planned
If the audience notices
I'll surely be banned
And made an example of,
A better man.

But I am your doll
I am the groveling one
Who sits and bemoans
This sick production.

It was all in your head,
God is no abuser!
He is a setter of trials
Who lost control of his arm
Call that Satan.

Not God's dominion.

Something in... you... went sour,
And made its own choice

A choice for sin!
A selfish, repugnant indulgence

How could you do it!?
You know better.
God gave you the tools,
And you misused them!

And you always think you're innocent!

Ridiculous.
Utterly ridiculous.

It's hard when you come into the world
And all your decisions are ready to be made,
But something is very sternly saying you make your own decisions,
And all the lines of spirit have one loaded,
Ready to tell you what is what.

You could take me down for my lack of culture,
I haven't read,
I'm not practiced or professional enough,
I'm just such an ogre.

But baby, I'm the reason for the season.

You don't get Marx without me.

You don't get Sartre without me.

And you don't get paid without me, babycakes. Hah.

Maybe I should have done some things differently here or there, but there's really no metric to judge that notion against so we're kind of mucked on that front.

However suffering, like everything else, has to have a shape and a color to it. The fallout of my love is going to find its way into my senses and to the middle of my brain whether I like it or not. You could say it builds character, but I think it just destroys it.

Remember that I write, girl. I don't really read all that much.

I am the man who reads the burning book.

Stop looking at me funny.

Her skeleton was never a birdcage,
But between her legs there is a flower
For all the hummingbirds
Or just one
However she prefers things.

Stop banging on the walls, there are none;
Don't walk off the edge of the world-- I love you.

a poem can be kinetic:
let it breathe fire
write it down and let the words lift off the page
and swim in your blood

fall asleep with howling ghosts in the hope that when you wake up,
they paint your world

don't be so sloth and slovenly,
mister death-forgives-all
you are the driver and the doer
you crave intelligent action

organized bereavement has taken the title
leave a string of lace behind,
then drop it

the drunken phantom of ultimate reality dawns on your sunrise
watch it slip by,
string that fine wine through the hills
wear it like a diadem when you are done
and you are done
right now
in the middle of winter

There is only one person
Who knows reality

And that
I am entirely certain
Is me.

I predict
That you will not recognize me someday
And that my shame will be all too apparent

That the ruse i use to excuse myself of mistakes
Will stay the same
But you will grow tired of hearing it
And it will be all too clear
What is going on here

But you are tired now
And given the infinite nature of everything
That would be why you appear the way you do sometimes
Bitter, angry, not a fan

But

Even the best people are monsters,
And newborns all pretense
With prehensile eyes...

There's a time to protect you
And to cut down to size

In me we all monsters,
I tear self apart!

Give thing to believe in.
Want love, light, and art.

In the back of my head there is something scratching
It wants out of this life
Because you've got me surrounded
But just who you are I don't know
And the demons won't go away
And the clocks tick tick tick in a creepy way
And I try to explain it but you aren't there
Or you are, but you won't be
And I think you're just a reflection
And I think I am the element
And I think that it's reflexive and that's why I struggle to impress
And I see the signs everywhere
But I can only confirm it privately
But I wouldn't want to otherwise actually
And I wish it was different but it already was,
When I was a kid,
And I only know one way to get that back
And you call me a Karen when I ask for the manager all panicked
And you say that solipsist people are crazy
And they probably need to take a medication
And out of nowhere I'm mentally ill and suffer
But I never expected suffering to look like this
And I think that's the reason for a childhood
Because ignorance truly is bliss
And it's a cruel world and cry me a river type vibes and you look at me like a loser because my suffering has to be fulfilled.

Stop telling me to be responsible for what I can't possibly be responsible for!

I am like your moth in a streetlight's riptide
At both 40-hour jobs all week
Breaking my back just to make things matter
But not in the way you'd like

You always said,
"Get outta here."
In your fanfare
Of incompatibility

Specifically once,

I came home where the expectations should've been low
You were strange, so strange
Criticizing everything i did
Giving me your opinion on every decision
And always complaining about everyone

After four and a half months of working two full time jobs
And putting up with the abrasiveness you're blind to
When I stopped wanting to talk to you, you hobbled up to me and said,
"Oh. Hi. I forgot you even live here."

Yeah, because I work 80 ******* hours a week,
And I can't buy Ramen noodles without you whispering to a housemate:
"Weird. I don't understand why you wouldn't just season them yourself, but whatever you like to do."

At least it wasn't in that boomy, loud-woman's voice.

I can't talk about requesting off four days in June (it's February)
Without you saying, "so you're taking off four days from your jobs to get paid to work at a convention? hmm. all I'm saying is you gotta think about balancing fun with work. I can't imagine you've accrued vacation time yet."

And yes when I moved out you wanted money for the glass top stove which was not damaged which you welcomed four people to use as much as they wanted which I would not use much and went to my parent's house to make food because you just made me uncomfortable when I used your kitchen.

But I couldn't complain because technically, you were nice.

And never made me talk to you

And you wanted money for the drier which had some ink inside the drum which has since dried and the dryer functions perfectly.

And you wanted money for the damages you said were most likely in the room.

It's time to walk away from you. No, you were strange.
No, I don't trust a stranger.

Death calls me like a hound baying
In my twenty-seventh year something fell off inside me and hit the floor

I lurched.
I saw the Dog.

Like a fat pitbull with huge shoulders and a big meaty head, drooling slobber onto hot concrete
From that mess of a maw--
It matches the wound it wants
In appearance

And nothing about It
Draws me near It

So I threw my lunch his way and I ran! As fast as I could
In the other direction.

I hope we can be friends!

Work nerve, bone and sinew
Into the frame of God--
See the trees' great yawp into entropy
Is it creation's defense of gravity?

With a crown of heath and laurel,
She moans from her seas,
And cries victory over halcyon clouds

And what will you do to honor this great exertion?
What specific action can blot out the defilers?
How will you heal that wounded mind,
And what's the next step through this family of trees?

The same way you'll pass by smiling Zeno
And pay homage to Maxwell Planck.

With toughening roots
And arteries that abcise
With a razor's kiss
By the attestation of your mind,
The measure, yes the Measure, dies.

Interacting with you started getting weird.
In other words, waking up.

You started to say,
I already knew all that

But at the same time,
I couldn't tell you how tomorrow goes,
And those are also on the circuit.

So you are in this superposition
Of omniscience and ignorance.

How am I supposed to feel about that?
I've become a slave to you.

What it all has to do with eternal recurrence,
Solipsism, religious ideologies
Eschatology
Quantum consciousness
And artificial intelligence,
I'll never really know

But I'm starting to feel like we're completely f*cked

"I don't care,"
I said,
Halfway through.

"Yes, you do,"
You corrected me,
"And that is why you don't care."

And you sighed,
And turned me around.

And it helped but it didn't help
And I was alone but I was not
And everything was confusing but you didn't write that,
I did,
And we turned into our own shadow again.

I am so sorry.

God...

I am just so sorry it went like this for you.

I am SO SORRY it had to be like this
You don't deserve that,
No one.

Alright, let's forget it ever happened

laud me for choking on my own spit,
it's an intelligent thing to do.

obligated with such atrocities
are all the universe's riches
so for dignity's sake and not my own
i convinced myself it's how we operate

how intelligently can a thing be characterized?
you've been giving me strange looks

getting myself up for work these days is hard,
i swear there's something different
and don't forget not to get all uppity with me
about how you, your daddy, and your grand daddy
don't know any other way

he stays in rotation the one with his spear pointed at my eye
i wonder why

i think my weaknesses were built in
you want to blame me for them
i encounter situations where everything closes off
but here's the thing, i know what you're up to.

and you will do that and i might just feel bad for being alive

no... I don't read like the famous writers of old
I'm a bad shot and I **** at guitar
I'm half Argentine and I can't speak Spanish
And I tend to get cold feet when I start a new job.

I'm just a broken man with a **** poor outlook on life
But in my own little world when you're holding in your violence
I savor every last drop of life that comes

And from the center of her warm tumor
She calls out,
I know this is a lie!

A dull thud is heard in the distance by us all.

Is she going to keep doing that?

Yes, until the day she dies
With periods of profound silence.

And she never forgives herself
Or at intervals she does,
For all her incessant complaining
I tried really hard.

This is getting difficult
Like walking through curing concrete.

They find their way in,
Though you feel protected at times the shadow versions of umbrellas open up under your skin
And you feel them
The prolific good becomes the prolific horror
Maybe we
Just shouldn't be so prolific...

Ah, to hell with that.
I'll take what I can
And let's find out when.

AH! TO HELL WITH THAT!
I KNOW HOW THIS GOES AND I HATE IT!
SOMEONE-- WAIT NO ONE-- HELP ME!

And So this is how she lives her life
Always aware
Of what she is doing
And there is this thick awkwardness between us
We are not cool
We are fake when we want to be real
And all too real when we wanna be fake
And Jesse Lacey is always cooing in our ears
And they always crop up just like that and there's nothing you can do
And oh, you know what you are

You can't prove what you know
And yes even so
They will still continue to treat you that way

(And when you really go to think of it, shouldn't they?)

What splinter in my neck
Woke me up today and said
I need to chase you
Around this whole **** world?

I should have stayed in bed,
Cause you told me that i'm dead
Don't want to chase you, chase you
Around this whole **** world.

I'm on a killing spree,
Don't think I'll ever change.
Set my feelings free
And keep them in a cage
So make me believe
I'll spend it all on rage
(In a moment)

I've lost everything before
And I don't remember how
But it's coming back to me right now

If my choice is to use force
Then I'm feeling disavowed
Cause it's coming back to me right now.

Don't want to ruin you,
I just have a creeping feeling
The way you look at me lately
Just takes me off guard

Cause I've never been okay
Always causing problems
And you're making me feel so included.

But I'm underneath,
Some things just never change
I keep wondering
How is it not deranged
To say i believe
When it's obviously strange
(I need warning)

I've lost everything before
And I don't remember how
But it's coming back to me right now

If my choice is to use force
Then I'm feeling disavowed
Cause it's coming back to me right now.

Win streak for the home team,
I chew it deep beneath my flesh
Digging little tunnels in my own bones

At least
We will use the flash expansion
To keep you cool in the summertime
Although, I can't promise it'll stay that way forever.

You behave differently now...

I know what you'd say:
I'm overthinking it
I need a mental health check

But I know what I saw,

The way you act now
It's like I can tell how it's all in my head.

Deny deny deny

At least she saw the fire when,
At least she drank some better blend.

Although i hope its just a drought
The magic's turning into doubt

The girl is the thing you're pining for
Inside you, she's
Inside you, too.

Subjective, sure...
But their ears are set
You cannot just argue your way into heaven

No, it's not just some big conspiracy to view your voice as less,
Some people have a natural talent
And they worked hard
You hallucinate an appeal here,
Just listen to the music
Stop complaining
Your whiny voice is so grating
And irritating

I turned my heart
Inside out
And saw the small black hairs.

I brought them up in Conversation,
Everyone just stared

It's too taboo
But true is true
And you know what they get up to...

But someone who
Stays true to you?
That's something to look up to.

Don't look to a numb man for answers
I don't tell stories well anyway
And poetry is a petty comfort.

Everything tastes bitter until lazy sweetness floats along,
I am selfish
I am ******* by waxy ineptitude
I am stale in this artificial haze.

Flying past infinity,
I couldn't stop my tracks
Her black hair said too late
She was a matter of fact
Not just the relationship
That I have with myself
But someone who loves me
And wants to help

But I could see past you
And endeavored to stay
And cursed that endeavor
In conspicuous ways
Because you couldn't help me
And though you tried
I had better plans in mind.

I abandoned your heart
On Kiss-me-Not rock
It said thanks for your service
We're now out of stock

I stand before God,
A brazen thing
A human alleging to understand exactly what it is
Aware of the element of idiocy
Aware, aware, aware
Of the spectrum enacting itself

Of the weirdness of history

The experience wants and betrays itself
The experience hides
The experience watches itself warily

No demiurge to speak of
There is not one way
Singularity is a lie
I see you

"I see your crooked path"
Well you made it be crooked
It is not my fault
And I truly did not have a choice

Yes you did,
It makes me so mad when you say that
Oh, you will understand

No one feels bad for Satan
No one feels bad for Satan
No one feels bad for Satan

No one feels bad for Satan
No one feels bad for Satan
No one feels bad for Satan
Except the devil himself.

May I ask why,
though I have worked all my life and times on a singular subject,
toiled day in and day out,
never missed a day of class,
studied hard and made novel discoveries in my field,

...

why you have given your student such a beautiful world to live in,
and privately consider me an expert of unrivaled caliber?

Why, oh why do you give me such a line of credit?

And why do you love me?

I guess some dedicate their lives to math,
Others take naked pictures with makeup and sleep just fine

I guess some people engineer rockets,
Others quit guitar and ******* with self pity

I suppose some people grow up in abject poverty
Others are complaining they weren't "handed the sort of character to serve in the military."

I guess consciousness is an odd sort of science,
And I guess there's a lot you could say about us.

The angels mock themselves, juvenile
Completely hopeless
You watch them burn

You are not God
You're a drunk misfit
And yet you are fettered to a godly doom,
With no such glory to speak of.

Well then, why am I here you ask?
Well I'm about to show you.

And let this poem be forever evidence
Of the strangeness of this individual,
And how they were fated to be the only one
To experience the fullness of the Universe.

melancholia,
the slightest music of an evaporating fountain
a lack of reflection in the universe
making love to your death...

what is it about dreary days that remind us
to tuck our hands deep in our pockets
and stare through the earth
or stare through the sky?

and though the sun might be shining on us
or on the clouds overhead,
we are nestled among the ceaseless divisions
in a small nook between
entertaining hapless musics
a pause between strikes
the place where we can
or cannot
cry

when plans come together in a cadence scattered
when resolution insults its own definition
we give our hearts to sadness

i think because
there is too much space
in the universe
to fill

Oh, pretending you could change,
It was lovely

And you did, you changed in all the same ways.

So I challenged you to change, it was ugly.

'Cause you never moved an inch, love
You're frozen where you stand.

This is where I punish you
For being selfish

I assure you that it's nothing personal

It's just dreaming, love
And that's the way it goes
Nobody knows,

After they know.

Nobody goes

After they go

Just go

Just

Go

Pick up on my message
It is nothing

If you ever felt aglow
Then it would come around, inducting

Itself...
Not you
Leading to
A vacuum

And you'd have to perceive something
So that's them
The perfect strumming!

**** women you'll never know
All the talents you'll never sew
But they'll insist it's not a myth
Oh no, it's fact, oh no, no no!

Joy necessitates
A shadow
Follow me into
The meadow
Now there needs to be
A wasteland
Don't you curse the grass
Where we stand
Please pick up your feet
You slacker
You must feel the heat
Of my slur
That's how we afford
The music
Which never really was
That useful...

Oh, I'm jealous of Gabriel...

When my experience is born,
A dynamic is created.

You are able to do things I am not,
And I can't be impressive.

Some of the experience seemed to want to help,
And some of it was full of hatred.

Some taunted and mocked me,
Some rejoiced along.

Some times I did things right,
And sometimes I did things wrong.

I think a person should be happy.

What if your sense
Of wanting satisfaction
Was tied
To the means by which you'd achieve it?

What if I knew you wanted to win,
And both meant to let you down on that point
But also had nothing to do with your failure?

What if the chemicals of your brain
And its physiology
Were truly rigged against you? For you? Both,
At the same time,
and neither?

What if I'm tired of listening to how bored you are,
When I know the horrors you'll face?
What if I'm capable of things you will never be capable of,
No matter how hard you tried?

What if I'm always worthy,
And you have to accept you're lucky we give you anything?

I will avoid being the bad one,
Be the bad one for me
Commit atrocity
I don't ever want to be
Like them
Sever straight
Be the wolf
Me, I am just a sheep

We know some have abstained
Bless their holy *****
144,000
Orders of infinity
They will never be considered evil

But me, I have to be
Have to be eventually
144,000 I fell straight through
There is no safety net
We must fulfill every state
We must complete the cycle
We must inhabit the spectrum

Love is real love is real love is real

My arrow was straight
Most of the time

You were on my mind
You were on my mind

I was part of the order
Most of the time

You were in my eye
You were a secret spy

Were we just spinning lies?

But beyond that,
Solely said in solemn grace
One thing ever was
Love was love
And you were you
Once and once and once

Mommy's a little
Turned away

She's always been a little
Turned away

Exert all you can over me
From outside my perception!

No, I don't know that artist!
No, I hardly read books at all!
No, I don't know that species!

You are a faker and I know it,
You are ******* and lies,
Things would have to be true
And i loooooove getting to learn more
And having something to do.

But I really detest when you act so cool,
Things would have to be that way,
And I fully
FULLY
Understand why.

Would you like an extra helping of slaughtered pig?
The gavel smacks differently every time
As lips smack differently,
And hearts beat unevenly

They are like those arcade games that push coins over the edge,
All beating, all grotesque and slovenly
Because science had to bleed into an art
So ignorance and anarchy could rule our minds

Bleeding and beating at random, greasy with blood
That is exactly how you'd like it
The sting of tears makes whole the meat of laughter
The incessant wrong and the pervading light
Empty space, quantum night
Sunrise come, make it right

And disappear into the void

My vocabulary is thinning
You should read a book
Forget about me, I'm
Left behind

When I fell asleep last night
It felt like I was dying
Now I know what life is
And I still can't do it right

Giving up the day
I faded into nothing
When I fell asleep last night
I felt like I was dead.

And the moon should catch more sunlight
And there might be a few more stars,
And not so much dark,
And sarcastic puppets should not flay one another senselessly
And minds are pure
And I love you.

And I do,
I love you so much.

Seeing your eyes lit up makes me happy
And I don't always understand why you still care about me.