sometimes the funk grows in my back of my head
and I start to feel like the sum of my mind
isn't good enough for my brain
and that nothing can please this monster of judgement
that sleeps behind my eyes

sometimes the funk cakes my entire perspective
and I'm so disappointed in the human being
that unfortunately constitutes the father of these words
yet I keep eating raw deli turkey right out of the bag
like some extra protein will kick my ego into overtime

sometimes I turn the mirror on myself
and I compulsively search for blackheads on my forehead
and they're always there
and its nice to pop them
because its an immediate blemish I can banish
a flaw with a fix
and it never crosses my mind
that the oils my fingers paint with
will birth the next blackhead for me to obsess over
a fix with a flaw

sometimes the funk recedes into the shallow
and I can happily hold my breath underwater
without even realizing that the pressure and heat
will scare those blackheads off my face
and not leave any fertile soil in their wake

i've been trying to assign a name to the funk
to dispel the crooked heads and furrowed brows
and all I can think to name it is human
and there are four destinations that let human thrive
hungry, scared, alone, alive

My hard boiled brain just don’t connect
The world I try to sense and see
This patch of light I can’t reflect

Fractions of my imagination collect
A soupy spongy murky sea
My hard boiled brain just don’t connect

Stand my guard and take effect
The menace yet to be
This patch of light I can’t reflect

Beat my chest and then protect
Walls of chain and sorcery
My hard boiled brain just don’t connect

Take flight now child and dilute my respect
Branch out from your bonsai tree
This patch of light I can’t reflect

But all these flaws I reelect
From a ballot absentee
My hard boiled brain just don’t connect
This patch of light I can’t reflect

I derive from arriving on time
Slime time live was the time of my life
The law of the land was a handful of sand
A snowman grayer than white but still alright

I’m from liquid firepower
Super effective critical hit
Killing members of my brother’s mouth
Killing myself
when my best friend moved south

I’m from AP tests and honors society
In a society that does not honor AP tests
imagine my anxiety

I’m from accidents happen
just when you think they aren’t gonna happen

I’m not from the football field
I’m not from the church
I’m not from a world concealed
because of these answers I search

I’m from baruch atah adonai
Elohaynu melech ha’alom
Nine fires at night and crossless walls
Perfect circle spectacles and
never using public stalls

I’m from the school of thought
that thinks about school
Dreaming of the western bay
You ask where I’m from?

I’m from every single yesterday

Beyond the black and blue
I can give back the truth
Because it’s not a crime
to walk into a public building packing youth

Let the drums roll on down
and collapse this soulless clown
Until he’s merely another body in a hole in the ground

Break my bones until it’s shown
how much blood this flood has known
You can’t postpone a cyclone or
Play sirens, stay private, or pray science
will apply the silence to overthrow a tyrant
that’s defiant in philosophy and dire in democracy

But that’s my luck
and I can’t instruct
The universe to bend its will
just because I’ve had enough

Play that piano with enough soul to crack the keys
And send a screech on down the hall that
disrupts their judgement but appeases them all
that ivory rubble puts a pop in the bubble
that convinced you that you were invincible

but since it now lays in the shadow of the mist
your creation and self-destruction can now coexist
Rome wasn’t built in a day but neither were you
Pack a little solace in the wisdom of ole
Fire fights fire so stop, drop, and roll

And when your time finally arrives
Know that something just as beautiful
was allowed to survive

Little pockets of sound that skyrocket around
Words: verbs, adjectives, nouns

Words can get me steaming or lucid dreaming
And it leaves me silently screaming to see people consider words a weapon
Like they mean to cause harm
Well let me remind you I have the right to bear arms

Just because what’s on that page is mine
Doesn’t means it aligns with the ideals in my mind
Writing is expression, not confession
So when I write about a character who is confused and depressed
Buys a used gun and a bulletproof vest
And shoots up his classmates in the middle of a test
Because everyone ignored the signs of his anger
Doesn’t mean there’s a trench coat on my hanger

But nevertheless, they labeled me me a threat
Better yet, they focused on me instead of the 15 year old addicted to cigarettes
and took my words out of context
Because they are con-text
Well I’m pro-text and I protest that they suggest that I’m hopeless
and I know this coldness only hones my focus on my magnum opus

But where would we be without controversy?
The indirect side effect to freedom of speech
A beacon for speakin’ your mind without your rights being breached

It’s all in the name
When you write, you’re right
But when you advocate censorship, then you’re ****
My two cents are worth a million bucks
So who cares if they contain a million *****?
F-words might be wayward but in a way they aren’t F-words, they’re A-words

Because all words are equal on surface
Well, until one strikes a nerve with a conservative
Who, without even meeting me, determined me to be
The next **** Germany

I didn’t write a story about a school shooter
I wrote it about how one impressionable kid became a slave to the page
And lost himself in the rage as an unfortunate consequence

And it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense
That the school would let themselves fall victim to a nonexistent threat
Brought on by a few paragraphs on a pair of half ripped papers stapled and
Paper-clipped to the rest of my script

You can place the blame but you became that same shameful shell
Hell, you can expel me, but you can’t compel me
To stop yelling again with this paper and pen
Or a stage and a mic
Going without words is like an endless hunger strike

Being voiceless ain’t a choice for this
When I protest, I prefer to be heard
A whole lot can happen with a few simple words

One lit wick amongst a sea of dismantled candles
That one flickering flame, the one that still shines
That one is mine

But lately that fire has become my world entire
Lingering on to the dying hope
That this little flame will burn the rope
That the world has tied around my neck
And threw a bag over my head
Lifted me on to a bucket
But I won’t go down that easily
**** it

We live a crazy world
Don’t we have the right go insane for little while?

Put on a little smile
and cancel out somebody else’s little frown
Because hands down
it’s better than that canned cloud
you bought on sale because it was cheaper
than spending a night gazing up at the sky
and putting your imagination to work
for more than minimum wage

That canned cloud won’t cut it
so melt it with your flickering flame
Down to the same gut instinct
that makes you hit snooze on your alarm clock
even when you’re already late

But wait, there’s more!
While you enjoy your controlled snore cold war, withhold your
neurons from running the relay race they’ve been training for
until you’ve found a track
that drowns your wrath
and surrounds your knack
for that weird little thing you do that makes you you

Burn the rope and go insane
train your brain to listen to itself instead of your bank account
And count on this
grassroots enlightenment isn’t on clearance sale
and it doesn’t have a 24/7 drive thru
it revives you ‘till you’re alive anew

Water those grassroots
with some good ol’ indulgence and improvisation
Leave it out in the sun to dry
and my oh my, you’ve just tried something bona fide

Insomnia is not the, uh
End of the line or some transcendent sign
That tells you that happiness and comfort are reserved for other people only

Take a deep breath to ensure the cheap death of the sleep theft
That robs you of your right to not dim the lights and go unconscious tonight
Stay awake and aware
Put foot to the brake and delay your despair

Mourn the loss of a fate that did not graduate
Into all that you’d hoped for and tried to create
Life is never translated perfectly from your grandiose dreams
To what actually seems to be the case
That the world is confusing and unforgiving place
Don’t cry over a book shedding some words making the leap from page to silver screen
Rejoice that you even have source material

For me, it was getting caught up in the fantasy of a girl
Who, for a little while anyways, redefined my entire world
My life's atlas is still undergoing edits, so she gets some due credit
And like an inquisitive child testing out his hypothesis on a lightswitch
She’d disappear without a sound and wait around to just be found
Awesome, awful, top of the world, bottom of the barrel, there, and not

And... not.

...

I was foolish enough to be a rollercoaster seat who genuinely believed that
The person who chose me wasn’t merely in it for the ride
But for something inside
Some kind of feeling
Only I could have supplied

But at the end of the 60-second 60-mile per hour loops and swoops
The bars come up and the passengers leave
And the seat is left there wondering
“Didn’t they like having fun with me?”

I’ve been brainwashed
to this strange spot
of abstained thoughts
there’s been days when I praise God
But today’s not
I gotta claim faith debt and hit rock bottom
And do to my demons what the so-called faithful don’t
Talk about ‘em

So for now I’m gonna let her light go dark
Because I’ve been blinded to the fact
That when I’m attacked
I can still create my own spark

I can climb outta the hole and
Get back in control and
shrug em all off and
the only thing she deserves is a scoff and
a few verses dispersed with perverse curse words

...*****.

I’m diagnosing myself with fictitious symptom syndrome
This apparent disease squeezes by my dilating eyes and disconnects my
god ****** diaphragm and derails my dialect

But as long as my skeleton stands up straight
And I have stories to create
Then yeah, I think I’m okay with putting off sleep for the night
In exchange for believing that everything is all right
Because tomorrow morning, I’m waking up at 100%
With the intent to reinvent myself and represent myself
As a glasses free Clark Kent