A bad sound
A vacuum humming;
Early morning

A bad sound
The unknown scraping
In the basement
....tires pulling up tp the pavement

A bad sound
The fury that trembles
In moments
While I waste them

A bad sound
blades snipping at the grass;
Surmounted Serene

A bad sound
The screech these marks made
When I was fourteen!
The worst sound

A chilling apprehension
Which floods to no ears
And only I hear
It Eventually becomes background noise
Throats clearing on the audience

..voices that pester and won't allow sleep.

It is,
cracking as we speak
basking in it?
Flapping
just to reinforce the seams
Tired of rhyming
tired of squeezing out strength
in between bed sheets
Dreams do not make us durable
if anything they trick the psyche
It's okay though
It is a test
we are all eligible
to
TAKE

Admission
Several half songs later
I stay at the type-writer: tapping
I am looking for structure, flexibility,
a stimulating blend of images
To rattle my listeners.

Too bad I come up empty

It's a shame I always crack
under the pressure of fake glass
incompletion makes a home in me
and I can't come back to health
until the books are written,
the songs are sung,
and my creations are raised effectively

But they would still act the same
as a **** stain
on haute couture..
Why pass it off as anything more?

I accept my role to be colorless, insignificant, and small
an ant can only be so tall
It is when we admit our futility
that we become a human, luminous

Oh let the stars ALIGN finally
No longer will I fret messing with em incessantly
Or wish they were someplace else

Live in the present
I expect it will be gone soon
And so will they
I dedicate every inkling
Of love I mustered up


Dumped it
Every bit
All at once.

F* it.
Because
I have practiced
How to muster
LOVE
From the flood

Apres moi, la deluge
And after the flood
Here I come
patterns repeating

I need to
summon
A hundred suns
To soak up the

The damage done..

Faulty prospects
Aw-fu-lly in-comp-etent
I'm all blocked up
And honestly
*******
At the result
**** the tick took
Why can't I rewind this clock?

All I really need
is to know that youre breathing
A feeble attempt at
knowing my own pity

Though it's for the best
I keep on walking
I could cross off
favoring modesty
over flinging undergarments

to hardly anyone who gave
two s*s
...will be addressed incessantly
until you're quest is up

Drug Addict,
you made your precipice
sank into a mess
you'd never see yourself
destroying
In a million years

Burn the books you bled into
Sweat pouring
heavy pencil scribbles
fog your head with voices
beg for answers at the door

**** down an assumption
Sometimes they get stuck
So I stutter
**** it,
AT this point
The floor could shut
Or shatter from under me
Either way
I wouldn't be stunned

Stay perplexed
Hey, maybe this time
We could actually  make a amends
Instead of  faking it.
But you may keep playing
Slave on this f---ing ship
My eyes roll backward
Til they hit the floor
Almost rotten from stagnation
Melancholy  Mania
Tends to **** yo brain from yo body
Reality  pauses
You are paralyzed with info
Sleep walking while awake
Its like loving t he bed of nails
You lay in..
Do I learn anything when I alleviate pain?
Whats the real meaning
To all this craving ?

Haven't set up an alter
In I dont' how many moons
The few times I tried
I truly knew the futility of it
And understood
That security, for me, is fleeting


Just another thing
That seems so easy for the others
Oh no dont applaud
My  baby brain  for its
Whining,ll just make it worse
So the other day after
I snatched the sage you left
For me outside your window sill
(Thank you btw)


I instinctively started
Making YET ANOTHER ALTER
Then broke down for the 5th time that day
"How could someone like you ever deserve a home"
Then I had remembered  
That Im not allowed to
Have a safe space

I'm a drifter
Pushing the limits
My health is at risk
Every minute
No one to care
Whether I die or live  

Sitting on my hands
In a thicket
Praying wishing waiting thanking
God that I woke still broken
Throwing up stuff
Everytime I tried to move

Hunger
Hurt
Thirst
Hate
Anger
Thankful
Stay low
on your toes
Heatstroke
Dryheave
Please No
Please make it stop
Oh god here it comes again
My Sweat drips endlessly
Chiggers bit my skin
So it wont quit itchin'

Bites that bother until next week
Typical....
All I want is a place to hang my hat
Or hopefully lay my head without trip wires surrounding
Me
All I want is to oggle my alter and call on my angels and my God
Without being on constant alert
Watching my own six

Bc your own brother will turn on you
Don't get comfortable
Dont relax
Dont unpack
Dont believe
A ******* thing they tell you
Prove me wrong then

Haven't had a mfr not turn
Haven't seen anyone actually keep their word

And why cant i set up an alter without it being destroyed?

Fill in the blank
We _too much
and _too little

"Don't worry
IT'LL be quick"
Man, you's a
Manic nerd
Rambling some spoken word
Mad libs based off
Charlie Chaplin / Speeches

Maybe she's mad at the fact
I got my eyes on my own work,
   And that personality
comes natural to me
I guess
That irks some people ???

I suppose, because
everything comes easy
besides the easiest things
...........
Which we continue to
feign for
(Meaning that being in the world
Now seemed more like a chore)
Deep down
I'm really
Ready to enjoy this
These extra pages
In my story

I NO longer create
Alternate endings
When I'm slipping

This void
we keep feeding
With fake sh**t
It can't be taken,
Or obtained
Can't be caged,
or traded for
Glistening gold stones
trophies,
  hoes
Or a home
Alternate endings

Wanna love every minute
They can give me,

But most of the time
I can't give 'em that

Warrior
In carnate
Heartache
Just a massive morale
Boost
'cause  who has lost?
When were all on
The same team
No, my molecules don't
Know me...
Good Guess!
My wolf is lonely
Honing in on echoes
Always calling out for homie

Uncomfortable flutters
Couple inches in
How interesting..
A river in the pit of miscreant
Now it's forgotten,
its subdued
It's  getting drowned out until I know what the hell to do
These flutters
Dont comfort me
Only confuse
And it  pulls at my sensory glands
To look like an elaborate ruse

Squeezing out water droplets
Just before bed
I'm reminded of what I miss
The definition of what I called "freind"
Was changed eternally

I ran out of work manic,
Raced to the tatoo shop
And got what I had wanted for so long
A fish fossil right there on my forearm
Coverings for angry cuts
I went home and cleaned it, runned it down with lotion
And I'm reminded of this familiar sting

Flashbacks hit
And I was 14 again
Sitting on the porch with you nursing my wounds
My arms were swollen and sore
Sliced from top to bottom
And you were the only soul I told
You wrapped me up in bandages
And showed me yours
You said "see we're both ******* up!"

8 years later I lie on a mattress in a living room floor
Punched in the gut by the thought of you
And how you could take your own life
..you also took my best freind

Emptiness has this warm subtle sting and I'd rather feel pain than nothing
But it's not self destruction anymore, it's therapy

And it makes me feel close to you.

Apache' tears
in the bathtub..
Simulacrum
Face caked,
in Heat baked,
Red paint,
Can't even fathom
How much you would need
To feed the ****** *******...
I'm cleaning out closets
So out with the bones
when I thought I'd forgotten
There, I saw your ghost
Screaming down, from the barrel
Of a gaping black hole
Apache' tears
In the bathtub
Askin'
please just bring him back home!

You never could protect me
and I put every bit
of hope in you
But you never could just love me
simply, truly, without condition
I'd suffer just to make you smile
and I could waste time remembering
every time my heart cracked how, when, and why
I let you build a room there
and explore each chipped piece
til I reluctantly shed my skin
and gave you permission
to burrow on in
though I sensed
several faces
and smelled a familiar
stench
it couldn't stop
magnetism
Afterward, time stretched
my imprint fades
into faint blurs
and your hate
still aims to
steal my laughter

11-23-11
Arrow head sticking outta my chest
Dont tell me who put it there
The blood & the dirt
The trash must be burned first ..
Left are the ashes
Of my illfitted words
Strike me
Or spare me
Slip me in with the heard..
I sit back and smirk
At the the decay..
Decaying EARTH
Can I get an applause for my brilliant work?

We are soothed by the sounds of sleep
get youthinized, get grey matter to leak
unconscious encouragement
mutterings so sweet
Let me bask in the drift
Transit to a spot more hospitable
less hospice
one where tongues flail
against the grain
passing insurmountable grass
that has yet to be grazed
or did you expect a
land unscathed
would you rather be subject
to the sound of white
or the sound of writhe
cry yourself to sleep
til you can't see straight
til you write your final ending
you feel as if your too late

As of late
I'm scared to sleep
To plunge my
head heavy
in a pile of pillows
To feel "at home"
For only a moment
Then I notice the closeness
Was just my lonely
Using illusions to subdue
my human
thinkin'
maybe
It  saves me
from
breaking  daily
Clock work can't get
The glue to stick
My squishy equipment
Has always been a nuisance
You've been holding onto
your own skin
  since gravity's
forgotten you
Orphaned
at hells door
Clenching linens
Tight fists
Just might fight the fire
Death danced into
My chest
Don't expect to escape this
God had given me a gift
Can't just Indian give it
Back to the wind
Listen....
Mama didn't raise me
To quit
I gotta mission to finish

Back to bed again
Ive paid my dues
Waited countless hours in this
Half state
To ascend to higher realms
Yet i remain wide eyed
And worried
Counter parts ive wished to cast out
But havent found out how
push defeatism aside
Horizons rise
And set in these moments
While i convince myself
Who's body
I belong to
Out of the distance
Whispers slither in
Saying
"Forget what you know"

Bats in the toolshed
dont give a f*
about sunsets
spoonfed and searching for a subject
cutting hymns into symmetry
What does it matter if our tattered limbs
dont fit right?
We're still elegant
in a scary way
All too familiar
I'm disgusted by it's
tiny frame
and how our dicey angst
gets in the way
a rat with wings
hanging upside down
in a handmade shed
on the outskirts of town
who knows where
and who knows when
evolution made a creature
so gruesome so grim

I'm a junkyard dog,
who was scooped
from it's home
and taken
to the pound.

I'm a mother,
who doesn't show affection
because I don't know how.

I'm a raindrop,
soon to be converted
into a thousand tiny pieces
of a town's White Christmas.

I'm a house-cat,
easily amused by a pile
of dissected presents.

I am a child,
enthralled by the shimmer
and fantasy hoax.

I am a Grandfather,
whining,
because I let my spirit slip
years ago.

I am a pigeon,
indecisive,
sitting on a wire all alone..
I've watched all my brethren migrate
because this year..
I'd rather be at home.

Here's my brain buzzing with bees
Hurry hush the need to want and want and want no matter the number
Or painful the colors
That accent your energy
Throw a fit to entertain
Those who are bleak
They fall asleep
satisfied members of the audience
And all the words that were meant to come out bold and interesting
Most times were to cure the mess within
Sweet peasant, your much more than passer-by stuck begging
My heart yearns for your pain
Also, your wisdom
Just look at the many spirits lifted
From the simple smile
That coats your existence
Sweet, Peasant
I regret to mention
The climb will be more tediuos
Than you could envision..

Here's me learning how to write again
In a world that is dying
Here's me learning how to live again without the thirst
Here's me learning how to love again
Because I know you will need me when you are let loose from your dungeon
Here's me attempting to be human again
Because we need more heroes instead of vampires
I am one in the same
Laid open, waiting
for the wind in me
To shift

Meatballs
And close calls
He can never seem
To quit cleaning..

Master of the matrix
May just be maintaining
I'd hate to malfunction

Once I understand
how it all works
It's my fault....

And now your hurt

Eventually convinced
I might be cursed
Because I can't
Hear the call..
No longer

Probably be hobblin'
Over
higher
hurdles
soon
And surviving rougher seas
Than I have ever seen

But,
Nobody can wage
A War like me

Sooo

Bring it!

Just prose of brutal honesty
I do drugs
I write
but nothing ever satisfies
underneath the bones in my chest
lies a gaping hole
Im not sad, im not scared
but empty
of almost everything
something missing
can't find it
can't fill it
spent countless hours tryin'  to **** it
why cant I be satisfied?
Nothing can cure my loneliness
not people
nor time
I just cant be satisfied.

I'm hanging over the edge
Not dead
Not alive
Not knowing where I'm going
Not there

There's a build up in my system
constant disrupt
It hums us to sleep at night
not to be sweet
but to knot up your insides
with terrible dreams


I recall a bettering
In my days ahead
My body will become resilient
Highly trained to dodge the prodding
And set my sights on the obvious
So what if were all lost
How have we not conjured a way
To live back to basic
Thrive In the wave
That our ancestors made for us
Could you embrace all my layers
I pray your the one who can take me as I am

Asking for my better half
Hazmat lab-rat
Tricked by the lack of love
hurting from the could had's
Mad as a hatter in the skull cap
Flashes of my last laugh
soundtrack
Sad, but I don't get them back
Could you really match me
Course I was forced
to see evil
in such beautiful
people
Still shattered by the impact
Can you teach me
How to re-believe in magic?

Per-fect-ly
proportionate
in pretty little pieces
the carnelian cracks
that clumsy ****
cant meditate
can't mean it
come accomplished
no conscious
constantly overdone
exhausted

I stand alone
opposed
against all odds  
against my world
against my God
I am alive
I coexist
among city-slicks
and dolled up *****
I didn't sign for this
You can miss me with
that "calling me a victim" ****
I don't need your ******* sympathy
because I value  voice and opinions
brewing under a chokehold throat
I was taught to let em know
lay it at em cold
and most will loathe it homie

Eyelids
like cinder blocks
The constant want
Never been so ex-haust-ed

Jaws
Stay clenched
Careful what you wish
Could you be a bit more present?

Nails
beyond bitten
become
scratches, scrapes, and sores
inflicted
I get a rush of destruction
Everytime I dig them

But now that theres a
Purpose,
A point,
A *** to ****,
I can't slink back into the upset
After meeting contentment
..even flashes of happiness

Found love with someone who is  just as ****** up
But worth the struggle
It takes to save them

So this crazy ****
Keeps finding
Cobalt colors constantly
Am I on the cusp of stumbling?
If this is real then
Why do we still dream?
Keeper of
Select scrap moments
Cuz I'm supposed to have
Mad focus
Feels like home
To be floatin' on my own again

Cobwebs;
That desperate correspondence
Of a salty conscience
... falls two droplets
Leaky prophet
NO, I have lost it!
Touched too much hot
Of the water faucet
Red hands
Scorned,
Reaching,
Torn
They remain this way
'Til they know what they're for..

Cold sweat
Soaking a little vest
Feel it caress
Each blemish
& bake up under the skin
Just...                     listen.....
I think that's the sound of my
Heart shiverin'
Though I can't really call it
One of the many....yes i seem to always   fall into this lawless state

I still read your work
in secret..
watching your life through a screen
where beautiful words dance
from the fangs of rambling monster
So much gray matter
in between neurons
where potential lives
and I understand the pain
that comes with distance
and disease
but, I have my own work to attend to
and I can't afford distractions..
you'd place heavy creatures on my back
in the hope that they would eat every good thing that came into my light
and yes, they are ravenous and powerful
but I've got a hunger in me
that surpasses all
and it isn't for you anymore.

Camryn Johnson

Jun 10, 2019.

"And this page

is just debris

of an emotion I felt for a split second

The gravity hangs heavy

In me

more frequent than before

I swear these organs will sink to the floor soon

My old soul

can't compete

with a heart that beats a million miles a minute

Does it make one naïve

To expect something decent

Maybe just leave it

To the birds

Is there no hope left

in this hopeless excuse for a being Will I ever shake this pessimist skin?"

Excerpt from "Coping Machines

Written: 2011

8 years of keeping the other half intrigued
I found us caves to lay in
and worms to eat
broke my back as I was able to lay
claim to a living space

Took enough
but the debris did damage
that man that was poetic, yet manic
yet perfect in his own context


we sent off letters
but forget em
they are compost
cut from different fog

now they get mocked
in my memories
how could you let your head
**** at your puppet strings

understanding the head
that possessed your grazing deer,
Mr. psychobabble, rambling man,
such shambles of ****

poured from the chest of branded mannequins
how did we get here
intensity livid
at what had become of some shared living
situation
cant ******* believe we let it decay
to a depth

where hate crept in
and we both let it
farewell for we've see
a whole new level of broken..

To welcome the empending doom with both arms
Is a foolish thing
But at least we turn a head toward it
I on the otherhand have been working tirelessly to avoid it
Living half mass
Emotionless
Regirgitating old knowledge

The unforgivable heat
Caused mania, was said to have made them
Turn in on each other
"The weak are meat and the strong do eat." The boss sighed
His walk was slow and refined


..low scoff turned high smirk
Mug's so mean, Men shiver in their spurs, they've learned
To tread lightly when time to speak
He is nasty, crude, and violent

Beyond focus
those sweet open moments
I'm breakin' open lotuses
To taste the holy ghost within
Never been good at anythin'
I reckon....but sin
Now to introduce
a fugative so elusive
I've only seen em move through fugue states
With an additude like Satan
A hangman waits to create
A rude awakening
For the late... Murderer made most wanted, "Well if I'm to die lemme ask real honest... why they ain't thought of grabbin' up my fellow robbers"?
The executioner stood mute over the killer then glared into
Them baby blues with such scrutinty
And replied "Who are you to
refuse your true humanness,
Or deny how intricate this system, which you are so
Infinitely rooted in.

I crave the danger
The danger craves me back
Hoists me up, but doesn't provide much slack
It snips and it snarls
And startles an audience expecting it
It bit and it bit
Chewed right through the skin
Burrowed on in
And slept there for days on end..

cut the chord,
show me ten of swords
. i'll absorb it
or just force it back into the vortexx,
he said, that death was coming for me next.
how bout you call the birds to talk about that ****...
going solo,
what's left of the tribe
Striving to chop off heads

Disaster piece
I'm always wondering
Why
You're mad at me
Had to ask!
To find out if
It's actually me
What are the facts of it
I always set them off
Maybe it's another lesson
I will never learn
Yeah, *****
You bet,
I'm better burnt
Unearthing the
Echoes
Encased
Inside
Her person
Voices boxes
No longer
Stepped on,
The shackled
Set free

Divine thought
busted out the top then stopped
caught mid-moment another day
good, bad, and ugly, and loving it
man down, malfunction
mild brain eruption
Tell me if I'm caught in the
stagnant melting ***
You aint sheltered
By no corporate ****
send your cops to block me off

Tell me I've been slashed off on the list
of high class citizens
pretend im with them
to sneak a sip of gin
and make a mochery
of their plastic, puffed up
Way of life
It will hoist you up and
drain the dreams from your ears
They don't accept me here
or respect the ones who have the GUTS
to be weird

Dare ya to judge
cuz we love to **** with normalcy
You peek inside like a stray dog
crying to the cold night
About as vacant as a vessel can get
transfixed on your picket fence
botox stretched lips
spewing straight *******

You can miss me with your stipulations
you're obliged to have nice things
No thanks
This is not what we were taught
to deem as important


Spoiled silver spoon snoots
I could learn ya how to be human
Lets shed those comfort zones
Have I been snoring through my big show?
Eyes always open
fists always closed
teeth tightened  to the point where
words get stuck in the gullet

Go head swallow that lump in your throat
Let it digest and sit quiet
Anguish aching
in the pit of my stomach
so shut up with your
need to squawk at the
I don't need you tp tell me
my words mean more than I do.


I am an instrument but I am affected too
Watch the monkeys dance
document this social ludicrous
can't believe they even live like this
I will teach my kids to know the difference
"Social Acceptance" isn't winning
Dance monkeys Dance
like cyborgs in a psych ward

Forever snoring in a narcissistic coma

Powdered skin,
Brush strokes,
Go coat
those desperate pokes
The shakey nature
Of made up favors
So playful
And able
We are
To Make the devil
Weak in the knees
As he does me,
So what if you suffer
You are but a drop
In an endless sea
No one will notice
When you drop
And you bleed

I miss
Laying in that
Queensized nest
with you
Wishing this off day
Would never end
We blacked out our curtains
Put on cartoons
And slept
Like sweet little babies

Until life almost had to
Rip me away from
Your warmth
The reason I woke up
Was for those days
The reason I broke my back,
And felt bad I didn't
Have more  To give,
Was for those minutes,
That I cherished
more than
GD anything
Still feeling my head in
Your hands
So familiar,  so specific
I apoligize ..
for dropping the ball ..
..All those years ago

Eat my world up
Then ink me out
It's awfully foul
When the stuff leaks
Wow!

Your incinerating your
Enemies
from the inside out
Munipulate many brains
To think their hate
Was self created
Manifest Projection  


From negative self respect
Pedestal perspective
Though only for a quick minute

They shall receive bad attention
Until you end up just as impotent
The imperfect deserve punishment
That has become your fix
To pluck what little light
Survives
In starry eyed fighters
The kinda guy that
Makes misery his company
Bc his understanding
Of love
Is malfunction
In the bloodstream.

What is inside
an uninhibited house
the promise of potential
progress

empty tables, empty beds
A future stomping with clumsy
Hard work doesnt often come from
negligence
But puzzles are hooked together
by the art of adjustment


Layer top of layer
rock against rock
continuously corroding
You can't be angry at the
result
when you saw it coming
THE ENTIRE TIME

The endless chatter
Shakes me to a brittle pulp
I don't belong here .
or operate like the others

I AM
One of the malfunctioning
No hope,
and no imagination

To paint my way
Outta here
Not Yet
The texts bleeds

And the margin oozes
Into Something
                Remotely
                      Beautiful ...