I sleep with my bed on the ground,
like the Japanese men.
I drown in the floorboards
again and again.
Dreams of dragons and kami,
embodied forms of yin.
They feed on my bones.
They feed on my skin.

How can something
Taste so absolutely
As if it's nothing

We're loaded like a six shooter
Six ***** to the hammer
and we empty again
We've been playing Russian roulette
and now it's your turn
to put us up to your head
And like a song about
how life is like a song
I'll keep this to the point
it won't go on for too long
The chamber revolves
the chorus is the click
We're both in a better place
once the breakdown finally hits

Sometimes I think
I think too fast,
Too fast for my own good.
Sometimes my thoughts
They make no sense,
An overdose of words never could.
Sometimes ideas
They come as pictures,
Framed in amber wood.
Sometimes they fill
Spots in memories,
Where absent friends once stood.

Sometimes I fear
I fear too much,
Of things that aren't real.
Sometimes nightmares
Come when I'm awake,
My soul they try to steal.
Sometimes self-conciousness
eats at me,
I grow sick with its every meal.
Sometimes they make me
Shy away,
From the feelings that I feel.

Sometimes I think
I think too fast,
Too fast for my own good.
Sometimes my thoughts
They make no sense,
An overdose of words never could.
Sometimes Ideas
They come as pictures,
Framed in balsam wood.
Sometimes they are
My only friends,
I'm finally understood.

Each time you recoil
to your northern roots
I am enamored.
Floored.
Caught in your web
like a leaf who's path,
being carved by the wind,
is brought to a sudden
and urgent 
stop.

We were only together
for what seemed like years.
But that was years ago.
And eventually we called it a day.
There have been
other girls since,
but none as calm,
kind
or gentle as you were. 
As you still are.

Every time I move past it
you retreat back home.
And Just like that,
the fuse is relit.
Like that night,
two years ago, in Boyds basement.
We didn't even kiss, but we did sleep
together. Side by side.
My arms around you.

I remember telling you
that I was in love. 
You were the first women
I ever shared those words with.
Im fairly positive that when you packed 
for Georgia
my heart was tucked away in your baggage.
It has resided in Atlanta
ever since.

This house still is not a home. 
Sure, all my stuff is here,
and I have even more than I did before;
which I've found is rare after a move.
I have things like freedom
and a spot in the garage.
A theatre major across the hall
who likes Portlandia as much as I do.
A giant mirror
leaning on the living room,
which I doubt Keiya will ever move.
Joe's Market is now a block away
instead of Matt Elliot,
who is the epitome of white trash.
And Mud Suckers,
where I can find a mean chai,
is just two blocks past that.
I have Dinkytown
and it's countless opportunities
within walking distance.

What makes a house a home, though,
is love.
Home is where the heart is
and my heart has no memories 
to help support itself here.
I haven't laid in this bed,
watching David Bowie
in The Labyrinth,
with my arms perfectly placed
in the chasms of another's architect;
I have yet to get lost,
in this now familiar place,
with someone
I am uncomfortably comfortable with.

The Mississippi gleams
like the rock on your hand.
Let its water fill your cup,
its steam fill your lungs
and let yourself go with the rapids. 
For every blow
you take to the face,
every little shot
that finds its mark
and every hit
that leaves you gasping for air
comes a new way to roll
with the real punches thrown.

The river keeps flowing
and your left with few choices.
Grab a branch, find some stability
and start a life outside the stream.
Stop fighting, let yourself sink
and burn out beneath the waves.
Or you can ride it out, every twist and turn,
and see what N'orleans brings.

It's just dawned on me:
all these houses are too close together
and all these rooms are full.
I have nowhere that I can scream to myself
without somebody close by knowing
that I'm not okay.

Haven't you learned anything
from the tapes we've watched?
He'll die.
You'll say you can't move on.
You'll move on just fine in the city with me,
falling for one of my friends;
falling deeper down the rabbit hole
into some cliche label
that has yet to be properly named.
I'll then be forced into some war
I want nothing to do with,
and despite the fact
that I will become a broken man,
there will be no Beatles song
to carry me home.

We will sing and dance on the rooftops.
Forgetting the lower levels of our lives.

Oh sister,
if watching Across the Universe
has taught me one thing
it's that I helped to raise you right.
I just didn't know
it was right into the lions mouth
that is the urban crawl
of trading your life away
for dark dank bar corners
and aromatic head shops.

"Go steady with me
I know it turns you off when I
I get talking like a teen
I get talking like a teen"

Yes, it does.
You read so well.
But it turns me on
when you speak
with such elegant grammar,
each word turned over
in your mind,
waiting to find it's perfect placement;
a lot like Stephen King,
another soul capable of capturing
my a.d.d.led attention.
Oh, what I'd do,
to be placed among
the proper nouns you leave out
and the procreated proverbs
you seem to sell your secrets to.
Instead, it seems,
you've caste me to the cemetery,
with the other animals,
only later to be risen from the dead.

Hearing you question your life
Made me quest in mine

21 years of waking up 
with the bed half
empty.
The nightmare that haunts me
as I lie there, awake,
Is going through 20 more.

More than death
More than failure
More than large bodies of water
I fear being alone.

I won't let the love
that flows through my veins
go untapped. Unused.
I've already let
too much potential
go to waste.

'I mean, seriously,
what kind of man
scores a 31 on his ACT
and only goes on to do
a single year at community college?'

The same kind of man
who's worries have
teetered on the edges of love
rather than within the confines
of success.
The kind of man
who'd rather be writing
stories to the beat
of other peoples lives
than allow the tales
of his own journey
to grow dull with time.
The kind of man
who measures life
in the amount of friends
and loved ones a person
accumulates
rather than with stacks
of green paper.

Someday I'll meet a women
who can see the world as I do.
We will be happy
in our tiny, cute 
twin cities cottage.
I'll walk down the street
to grab the paper and some coffee,
she'll watch the boys
while trying to make her deadline.
We'll be happy
in our own chaotic,
free-spirited,
open-minded kind of way.
Physical possessions
poison the soul.
Money has no value here.

"Through darkness you have come to your hope,
and have now all your desire."
The falling sun shone,
to gleam like red gold,
and the white was turned to a flame.

Into the waste lands beyond,
they passed over.
For they were afraid,
for they were still.

On the sixth day they overtook an old man.
He was clothed in rags; another beggar,
slouching and whining.

"Where are you going?"
          "What is that to you?" he answered.
"You know the answers."
          "The time of my labours now draws to and end.
The burden would have shown you wisdom and mercy."
"I desire an answer"
          "Then once more you are going the wrong way."

"In 2 years
I'll regret the things we never did
You will regret the ones we've already done"

She was right

*** starved and aging badly
Too many cigarettes and 'dank *** ****'
Bad tattoos and ****** hair so scraggly
He's called in sick to work all week

He set his high score four years ago
But she broke his heart last June
Now he's stuck in his parents basement
Doing speed runs on Halo 2

She has no cash to feed her cats
But she bought two wigs on Monday
She dresses up like anime girls
And thinks she'll be famous someday

She'll tell you she's just keeping it real
While dressed like someone from science fiction
She meets the boy at some comic con
And they go to her hotel room to make friction

...

Edgelords and meme queens
Addicted to the obscene
Spewing hateful words
With no care for what they mean

It seems that even the regals
                                   Are doing their kegels

She read her book
Her eyes focused
Like a hawk on its prey,
Hunting down every next page

She read her book
In the shade of an umbrella,
Like a spine in a sleeve
She continued her numbered journey,
naive

She became excitable,
Nearing the end of her trip
Each page consumed in a hurry:
Four-oh-four, four-oh-five, four-oh-six

The plot thickened,
The ****** commenced
The past two hours
Flew by, so intense

She finished her book
And into the distance she looked




disappointed

You've got memories, I've got ghosts
And I can't forget, hard as I try
I could map all the words you ever spoke
Like constellations in the sky
Second to the righteous and straight on 'til mourning
Like men lost at sea while soul searching
The repeated prayers were wasted breath
Used to **** time while we waited for death

The salts in the air and the ocean breeze
Burn the cracks in our skin and make it hard to breathe
While the remarks and past that cast our sail
Are lost from our lungs with each exhale
Hope and courage course through our veins
Trust and faith is all that remains
With defeat and pride guiding the waves
We set a course for better days

Onward to mystery
To make our mark in history
When clarity becomes a cloud
everything starts to let you down
I am the Flying Dutchman
searching for better ways
I  am an undead crew
longing for better days
If you see me on the horizons
just let me be
I'm trying to find value
in a calm at sea

“I can believe things that are true
and things that aren't true
and I can believe things
where nobody knows
if they're true or not. 

I can believe in Santa Claus
and the Easter Bunny
and the Beatles
and Marilyn Monroe
and Elvis
and Mister Ed.
Listen -
I believe that people are perfectable,
that knowledge is infinite,
that the world is run
by secret banking cartels
and is visited by aliens
on a regular basis,
nice ones
that look like wrinkled lemurs
and bad ones who mutilate cattle
and want our water and our women. 

I believe that the future *****
and I believe that the future rocks
and I believe that one day
White Buffalo Woman is going to come back
and kick everyone's ***.
I believe that all men
are just overgrown boys
with deep problems communicating
and that the decline
in good *** in America
is coincident
with the decline in drive-in movie theaters
from state to state. 

I believe that all politicians
are unprincipled crooks
and I still believe that they are better
than the alternative.
I believe that California
is going to sink into the sea
when the big one comes,
while Florida
is going to dissolve into madness
and alligators
and toxic waste. 

I believe that antibacterial soap
is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease
so that one day
we'll all be wiped out by the common cold
like martians in War of the Worlds. 

I believe that the greatest poets of the last century
were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis,
that jade is dried dragon *****,
and that thousands of years ago
in a former life
I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. 

I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars.
I believe that candy
really did taste better when I was a kid,
that it's aerodynamically impossible
for a bumble bee to fly,
that light is a wave and a particle,
that there's a cat in a box somewhere
who's alive and dead
at the same time
(although
if they don't ever open the box
to feed it
it'll eventually just be
two different kinds of dead),
and that there are stars in the universe
billions of years older
than the universe itself. 

I believe in a personal god
who cares about me
and worries
and oversees everything I do.
I believe in an impersonal god
who set the universe in motion
and went off to hang with her girlfriends
and doesn't even know
that I'm alive.
I believe in an empty and godless universe
of causal chaos,
background noise,
and sheer blind luck. 

I believe that anyone
who says *** is overrated
just hasn't done it properly.
I believe that anyone
who claims to know what's going on
will lie about the little things too. 

I believe in absolute honesty
and sensible social lies.
I believe in a woman's right to choose,
a baby's right to live,
that while all human life is sacred
there's nothing wrong with the death penalty
if you can trust the legal system
implicitly,
and that no one but a *****
would ever trust the legal system. 

I believe that life is a game,
that life is a cruel joke,
and that life is what happens
when you're alive
and that you might as well
lie back and enjoy it.”

She stopped,
out of breath.

Oh Christ,
Soupy's done it again
With just his voice and a pen
He knows how to speak to me
Just through the lines that he mutters
******,
He's done it again
This time it's just like he said:
I wanna live in the city
But I wanna die in the suburbs

For once I don't care
Where the other roads lead
For the first time,
In a long time,
I don't hear them calling out to me
I'm not looking for anything
to start being distracting
I'm more focused on the path
that's been placed beneath my own feet

I've spent every waking day
Believing that everyone needed to be saved
Now I've finally found someone who does,
And for once,
I can't find the strength

     Am I losing my way?

Because I've been acting
like I'm losing my ground
But the truth is
I've been coming around
I've worked ******* picking up the pieces
And now
I dont want us to get attached

This way you can't bring me down

I will pick you to pieces,
Break you down into different parts
I will target every weakness
And test that thing you call a heart
It's my reaction, only natural
Since you did unto me the same
And now that Summers long since over
I can't seem to forget your name

You've a head right for business
A body you've proudly forged in sin
And a heart locked up so tight
Yet you've let a deadbeat in
I've a tongue forged in gold
I shouldn't bite it, yet I do
I guess it's just a force of habit
and I almost always chip a tooth

We're outsiders, you and I
The Periphery
Watching everybody else
Pretending we're just like them
But knowing we're not

The best we can hope for
Is to find a place where we don't have to pretend

It's a shame really,
Under different circumstances
I think we could've been great friends

Another burning body
cast by the candlelight
is a dancing soft reminder
of all the ghosts inside
There is a burning building
trapped out in the night
where the people on the top floors
would rather burn than fly
Your drowning all your sorrows
that you found in the unknown
seeing the somber path before you
carved into this game of thrones
Just another drowning soul
each of them lost at sea
and we give them our best wishes
instead of what they need

You'll call it fate,
I'll call it karma
You'll call it faith
in the armada

The blossoms of unconscious
found in the ambience of sleep
interrupted by explosions
and implosions of a dream
Like how nothing seems to make sense
without a bit of consistency
and how life just seems to roll on
giving us no time to breathe
You ask me all the questions
you've picked up through your life
and the only answers I can give
are the elements of surprise
We spend so much time on thinking
trying to make everything seem right
that we forget there are no answers
that can't be figured out with time

You'll call it fate,
I'll say your right
There's no point in wasting time
on another endless fight

As the river forward flows,
constructed for deconstruction,
the shores start to erode
with no intent of reproduction.
They dance off one another,
until one has been worn out;
like the stigma of the summer:
too hot to let your hair come down.
The rocks invade the river,
the river eats at the rocks.
Cold water sends a shiver
through all their late night talks.
As her mouth begins to stretch out,
as she becomes one with the sea,
the rocks are left with no doubt,
they are no longer what she needs.
All this time spent to confine her,
trying to tell her where to be,
he forgot to flow with her desires
and now she's finally running free.

A vast, and mostly empty world.
Yet each rock, chasm and plant
are completely smooth.
This world is metallic.
As are its landmarks.

Sleek, silver silhouettes;
metal mountain sides.
It all leads to the pyramid
surrounded by more ridges of steel.
A light shines through the top
of this gateway to knowledge.
A symbol to a futuristic,
primitive cultures God.

But does their God answer?
No. No he does not.
His focus is instead
on something else entirely.
What it is, these metal men
do not, and will not ever know.
But it is more important than them.

She put on her make-up, her dress and her watch
She pulled up her socks and put up her hair
And in her hair, she placed the umbrella

The small green umbrella
had at first been a joke.
There in her cocktail
on their very first date.
He had taken it from the ice,
setting it above her left ear.

She walked out the door, down the driveway, to the car
She pulled out from the drive, and into the street
And in the rearview mirror, she caught the umbrella

She had worn it on each
of their dates after that.
Through all the long years.
Through all the happiness,
and sometimes the fights.
It always kept them connected.

She entered the building made of soft colored stone
She met with the nun, who helped her with the practice procession
Through her walks down the aisle, the sister noticed, but didnt ask, about the umbrella

She had worn it the night
that he had proposed,
just as she would
on the day they would wed;
and the next ten years after that.

She saw more cars pull up, more friends and family arrive
She met with them all, and spoke with them softly
They were all accustomed, of course, to the fifteen year old, faded, umbrella

Ten years after the wedding
she still had the keepsake.
She had even been wearing it
on the most tragic of days.
The day of the accident,
the one she survived.

So she walked down the aisle, and arrived center stage
She smiled at the calm face of the man that she loved
She then reached up to her hair, and inside his casket she placed

The Small Green Umbrella

It drives me crazy that Atmosphere is bigger
in New York than Minnesota
and yet none of them give a flying make love
about the one and only Purple Yoda.
It's how they call it solo
instead of a ****** island
and how instead of three and ***** back
same cup is an automatic win.
It doesn't matter if I'm in a backwoods cabin
or if im stuck in the big city.
No, no matter where I'm at in this state
I'm always anxious and ******.
I haven't seen one genuine smile
or a single pretty sun dress
and though I didn't think it possible
I'm missing home amidst the stress.
But I think what I hated most
about this trip to this place
Is in the middle of a long ****** night
after being down all **** day
I stole my dads truck,
went east on Sunrise Highway,
almost ran it to E
but didn't stop anyway
then I finally saw the exit
and turned left on Carmans Avenue
went right at the first stoplight
and I still didn't find you.

All the time, defined by enemy lines,
And all that's on my mind is lies
On lies
On lies

Aye-aye!
                    Tough fight!
Heavy eyes!
           God given rights!

I wanna be someone that you believe
that you'll believe
that you believe in

I wanna hear something that I think
you'll mean
even though you think, right now,
you couldn't possibly mean it

Smooth, Sleek, Structured
Caramel colored and Calm
Slight scratches show
A past of pain, no glory
Smooth, Sleek, Structured
Caramel colored and Calm
A Soft and Simple stone

Too bad I hate rocks
Even one this beautiful.
Rocks are ******* boring.

There was a time
where I didn't know anyone
with a child.
Where I hadn't been
a groomsmen
in three weddings.
Where I didn't feel as though
I were losing some imaginary race.

There was a time
when T.J. was still alive,
when Lisa was still alive,
when Peg was still alive.
But every flower wilts with time.
Some by choice,
some after a hard fought fight
and some after a long lived life.

There will be a time
when this all makes sense.
When I will see why my road
took the course it did.
When I will be humble
with my fate.

But time is relative
and it is man made.
Life is but a fleeting single flash.
It is just one big bang.

Like a baseball bat
in a room full of clocks
Just swing, Jack, swing
no longer give any *****
Turn them all back,
and then stop them completely
At a time when my fangs
were not yet wisdom teeth
My grip,
I'm losing it
Like a montegues
on a capulet
My vices,
mobbed with pitchforks
Is it being lonely
or in good company that's worse?

Is it too much to ask for
A pretty girl with a crooked face
Who's happy just to wake up
Just to have me every day
And maybe she doesn't believe
In the beauty that I see
But maybe that's the reason
She ever fell in love with me
Or am I bound to the loneliness
A man tied to a ball by chain
Left to drag the weight around
Forced to deal with all the pain
Pulling bones right out of sockets
Tearing muscles at their seams
Slowly slowing me down
Until I'm in the depths of dreams
Where just the thoughts of something warm
Are more soothing than the reach
Towards the always failing stars
Before they crash into the beach
And where things that don't exist
Have a shot at seeming real
And where things you'll never touch
Seem like something you can feel

I'm not as cool
or as lame
as some would lead you to think
I'm not as calm
or hotheaded
as most people would say
I'm not as lost
or as focused
as I'd claim to be
I'm not as sad
or as happy
as the person I play

I'm just me
and I'm ****** good
at being
what they want me to be.

I got lost in a sea of people
And a monkey mask
And although the snow was rollin
She didn't tell, I didn't ask

I'm bad at letting people in
Unless I'm in a different state of mind
But like all the faults I've found
It's bound to fade away with time

I fear I only feel at home
Surrounded by faces I don't know
And that unless I'm in an awkward situation
I'm doomed to always feel so cold

I lost my soul to California
Although I've never been out west
I know the golden state of mind
Of those who think they know me best

I found worth in a sea of people
Caught beneath an avalanche
And although it took some time and courage
I think it's finally worth the chance

The first fight club was just Tyler and I
pounding on each other.

It used to be enough that when I came home angry
and knowing that my life wasn't toeing my five-year plan,
I could clean my condominium or detail my car.
Someday I'd be dead without a scar
and there would be a really nice condo and car.
Really, really nice,
until the dust settled
or the next owner.
Nothing is static.
Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.
Since fight club, I can wiggle half the teeth in my jaw.

Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer.

Tyler never knew his father.

Maybe self-destruction is the answer.

Tyler and I still go to fight club, together.
Fight club is in the basement of a bar, now,
after the bar closes on Saturday night,
and every week you go
there's more guys there.

Tyler gets under the one light
in the middle of the black concrete basement
and he can see that light flickering
back out of the dark
in a hundred pairs of eyes.
First thing Tyler yells is,
"The first rule about fight club
is you don't talk about fight club.

"The second rule about fight club,"
Tyler yells,
"is you don't talk about fight club."

Me,
I knew my dad for about six years,
but I don't remember anything.
My dad,
he starts a new family
in a new town
about every six years.
This isn't so much a family
as it's like he sets up a franchise.

What you see at fight club
is a generation of men
raised by women.

...

You aren't alive anywhere like you are at fight club.
When its you and one other guy
under that one light
in the middle of all those watching.
Fight club isn't about winning or losing fights.
Fight club isn't about words.
You see a guy come to fight club for the first time,
and his *** is a loaf of white bread.
You see the same guy here six months later,
and he looks carved out of wood.
This guy trusts himself to handle anything.
There's grunting and noise at fight club
like at the gym,
but fight club isn't about looking good.
There's hysterical shouting in tongues
like at church,
and when you wake up Sunday afternoon
you feel saved.

You're going to make a life
Even if it kills you
The irony, a silver bullet,
Is hollow tipped and true
I've become a conscience,
The Hand of the Queen, a guide
The whisper of a realist
With nothing more to hide
We've found the perfect balance
Between a balanced mind and something new
We've lost ourselves in time
And now all we need is truth

Just because I stumble doesn't mean I'll fall
Just because you have touched the skies
It doesn't make you tall

You can have the right gameplan
You can win all the rounds
But you still need your chin tucked
Until the final bell sounds

See,
My footwork was perfect
I'd slip in, jab, slip out
And I avoided the takedowns
For most of the bout

The final stanza opened
He came out slingin' leather
So I stuck to the outside
I've been taught to know better

I should've pushed for the finish
But I thought I'd play it safe
When I woke up after the fifth
Coach asked if I knew my name

I told him, "what happened?"
I asked him, "I'm fine."
The cage was still spinning
And I couldn't clear my mind

"You got caught, kid
But it could be much worse
You could be leavin' Las Vegas
In the back of a hearse."

I felt so disappointed
Like I let everyone down
My trainers, my family
And everyone in my hometown

Then he smiled at me
"But you were saved by the bell!
Running on instincts alone
You made it through Hell."

The fog began to roll back
I could make out the cheers
I guess hard work and dedication
Paid off through the years

So just remember this story
The next time you're in doubt
You may find yourself down
But never count yourself out

I'm soft-spoken.
But
Words
I say
Carry a
Heavy
Weight.

As she spews contortion
from her violin chest
The sounds of C minor
began to build a nest
&
As he sifts through propaganda
of bamboo and blast beats
The floor begins to take him
for he hasn't slept in weeks

---

Their thoughts cascade like fire
around the sounds of Show Your Bones
And kerosine licks her wounds
as they spit it up upon old homes
They strike their fondest matches
and watch the wooden parts ungrow
And then they place them in each others mouth
Where no one else will ever go

She dances with rhythm amongst the chaos
while she weaves a tail of smoke
And the beauty caught in her third eye
is the only thing that's broke
His gaze is focused on only one thing
the pittered pattern of her percussion feet
As he finds warmth by the molten lava houses
while standing at the center of the street

Their goal was finely furnished
they burnt a hole right through their childhood
One that would scar their mother earth
who had forgotten how to feel this good
Their past was made of synapses
that could only be found up in their head
And when they really thought about it
they found that 'now' is all that's left

---

As she choreographed a drum line
with the snare found in her sole
The days, the months, the years: her life
began to take their toll
&
As his desk sits around him
he pens a mystery
Of flames and lust: of destruction
he can finally fall asleep

I know you'll be waiting, still wild as a fire,
At the pearly gates
Still cracking jokes and swinging bats
So very nineteen ninety-eight
Pinching **** from underwear drawers
Of the patron ****** saints
And teaching all the angels
How to pull your favorite pranks

Pull out that flask from your white robe
This one's for you, my favorite ghost,
You always said Hell was at the end of your road
But I think that we both know

For once, you're looking down on me

Oh hell
Hell no
No way
Way to go
We've only got a little bit further
'Til we get through the snow

Right on
On guard
Guards are up
Up in arms
It took you time to see
That this is part of our charm

We head back
Back down
Down and out
Out on the town
You look just like a starry sky
In that new night gown

More drinks
Drink it up
Up and down
Down the cup
Just a little bit more
and I swear that's enough

I like you
You like me
Me and you
You can see
Even if it doesn't last
For right now, it's meant to be

We get home
Home run
Run away
Away and done
If I am truly your moon
Than you must be my sun

We lay here
Here in my space
Spacing out
Out of the race
I hold your body close
So you'll find comfort in my place

In my arms
Arms race
Racing hearts
Hearts and spades
I will cherish this moment
Even when the warmth fades

With new-age values
and cold hearts all the rage
This lack of compassion
seems met with such praise
People today
I just don't understand
So I start the long journey
of the lone mountain man

All the skyscrapers
they once focused my eye
With dreams of wearing
pressed suits and a tie
But the buildings weigh us down
at least I know they try
So I treaded them in
for clearer skylines

I found art in the woods
music in the clouds
Memories where I've stood
and your love to make me proud
I felt the dance of the creeks
the poetry of the bears
And though I'm still a bit weak
I fear less and less my nightmares

I built us a cabin
with my bare hands
Walls of strong stone
floors of fine sand
In hopes that you'd leave
this city behind
To come join me in
the peaceful country side

But the bright lights
They still have your attention
And my humbleness
It wont draw your affection
I thought I could show you
a new kind of life
One much less busy
with less fear and less strife

But you're still so restless
you're still young at heart
With your innocence intact
clinging to conventional art
Caught up in the city
without a choice
Overlooking soft words
spoken with a soft voice

As my words bleed
into the soft breeze
And my dreams fly away
on the bluebirds wings
My thoughts begin to age
with the red wood trees
And loneliness grows
like grass past my knees

With old fashioned values
and the shoes on my feet
I avoid most people around me
walking on the paved street
I will continue to forge
my own way, my own plan
As I walk on, alone,
As the lone mountain man

A strawberry-blonde,
buck tooth, 
dinosaur lovin' kid
is the purest thing
I think I've ever been.

Old habits die marred
Especially during scarred times
When you need a more unfamiliar bed
Than the one found in soft rhymes
Sometimes comfort is found in uncomfortable places
I've never found it in familiar faces
Sometimes it's found in the strangest of spaces
And others it's found in uptempo paces

A hold up a minute
Just to waist a second
Killing thyme with a vegan
Who feeds upon my meat
I'm picking up good libations
She's giving me exaltations
We're stalking hand in hand
In the intersection of a bustling heat

She gave me her throat-like throne
Just to take away my crown
Slipping through a crack in the floor, bored
We forget all proper nouns
We haven't sent out one invitation
Yet we're throwing parties in a ghost town
From dusk 'til it dawned on us
From sun up until the son set us down

We feast

A ******'s a ******'s
a ******'s a mask.
Unless it's a suicide
shattered by the past.
another best friend suffering
from proximity infatuation
is just another turning cog
in a lucid dreaming nation.
Part one, a romantic drama.
Part two, ****** mystery.
Part three, an epic mind-****
of father figures and Penelope.
I died on a soft Vanilla sky
and awoke in the vast salt flats
I guess I'll see you in another life
when we are both cats.
I wonder what's real and what's fake
and if she'd ever really seen me,
I think she's the saddest girl ever
to hold a martini.

A dream can be
A wonderful place to live
Where you can shape anything
To your whim
Unless it becomes a nightmare
Composed by static strife
But I don't want to dream anymore
I want to live in a real life

Though you may not be the man
You were when you fell asleep
(I guess that's sort of the point
To living in a dream)
Every passing minute
Is another chance to turn it all around
A chance to accept your losses
But still fight for solid ground

I would love to wake up
And be the mole on your chest
But I know I'll just be me
So that is who I must caress
And although the narrative is clearer
I still enjoy distressed formats
So, I'll still hope to see you in another life
When we are both cats
Yes, when your own dream should end
I hope you can finally clearly see me
And I hope you are no longer sad
When you're holding that martini

Did you notice,
that I noticed?
Yes, I noticed you.

I used to be better
At being with those less put together
But as I assemble my own pieces
I've become bad at that, too

A girl wants a fiery temper
Tattoo scars from bad weather
And pieces not assembled
So she's something to do

While a boy wants not to feel bad
Something sad to make glad
As if he has no root in the blame
That any other person’s due

So now I'm trapped somewhere between
What makes up a girls dream
And what I now assume
A woman must want, too





I’m probably still wrong

Another albatross bends into a thousand canyons
As the battle blossoms another home fades away
Nothing fills the voids left by broken wings
The price of every burden bleeds out for free

A peaceful autumn breeze and me at seventeen
Both of us kicking leaves, killing time at the ravine
When suddenly it all hits me


Nothing is as it seems


I grew up an angry kid,
Punk-rock was all I did
Black t-shirts, with harsh swear words,
Growing up - the only thing it hid

Fifty miles in my moms car, thinking that was so **** far
A small crowd packed in a dingy bar
All to wait for dimming lights, stage-dives, fist fights
We'd sing the songs all ******* night,
It made us feel like we were right

But nothing'd ever change

The world doesn't hear fifty young voices,
Bold flavored shirts don't change others' choices
Besides, the concrete walls drowned out most of our noises
No one could see our radical views,
Nobody else thought it was anything new,
But it was what we chose to do

2007, that's the year I grew

I see old friends posting pictures,
Now they look like aging hipsters,
Still wearing the black tops,
Still hanging at the same record shops
"Glory never fades if you never leave it"
But some of us just need change,
Goals to move towards,
Something to believe in
And some get stuck in what they're doing
If they’re happy then there's no sense moving

No reason for turning the page
Some people never change

I've been told
I seem cool 
from a distance,
and that I'm amazing 
if we manage
To get close.
It's too bad, then,
that I never learned 
how to navigate 
the middle grounds.

I know you can't get
from point A 
to point C
without a few trips over
the long winding
bridge
that is point B.
But I can't face my fear
of heights
or of what little is there 
to catch us
should it all collapse.

The fear of heights
Isn't really what it seems,
though.
I'm more afraid 
of waking up one morning
only to realize
I've forgotten how to fly
than of flight itself.

The biggest weakness I have
is my ability to love something
one day
and begin to tire of it
the next.
I find myself getting over
things sooner than I
can find their replacement. 

And I guess, 
amidst the womb 
that is
my ability to bore,
to forget, 
my fear 
of not being caught
developed.