I want to be a substance abuser.

I want the vapidity
of my own words
to evaporate.
I want the void
to rev itself up,
and spin itself into
a voracious tornado.

I want to extinguish
the emptiness
with this epitaph.
I want language
to bend to my will,
leaning and looming
as an entity of entirety.

If I should be so lucky,
I hope to die
of an overdose.


-LP

desperate for a break in loneliness
longing to be devoured
heart once removed
prey versus predator
gentle, lays the Beast
slowly fueled by crowds of vacant eyes
primal feasts of flesh
no bearing on the soul
no past
no future
momentarily sated
a life of pretense
constructs of reality morph with mood
crushed and renovated by perception
the soul eats trusting hearts
unable to quench the thirst
it spits out bare bones
and goes on its way
living for the bliss of escape
oblivious to consequences no one else can see

They said that I could be whatever my heart desired
But I don't know what I want; All I know is that I'm tired
The world's too big for someone like me
The world's too small to fit people comfortably
The cities are jam-packed and all of the bodies
Are writhing and bending like awkward pilates
But the abs don't develop, the friendship's avoided
The only way to the top is to blood dope and 'roid it
There's no one that smiles as I climb on the train
And true, my own smile I made plans to retain
But maybe that's it! We've got a vicious rotation
Of these serious faces, a shy person's vocation
"Put up the wall!" cries the brain in a fright
The same little voice that grabs the wall switch at night
So let's bring them all out of the hand-painted shell
That covers them up and locks them in so well
But back to the start, I don't know what I'll be
And it's so hard to think with these people around me
They crowd up the alleys, the houses, the street
And it's funny, two strangers with same routes don't meet
We wrap ourselves up with the survival of the day
And we become more robotic as our humanity slips away
We entertain the thought that we're cognitively higher
And we've been doing that since Prometheus stole the fire
We've got all our gadgets ideas and tools
And we set codes of standards and morality rules
Sure maybe we're self-governing and make our own laws
But how does this make us above those with paws?
Are we wholly smarter by gift of this tech?
Because it seems to me that the world is a wreck
We took over the planet with ignorant spreading
Closer and closer the moment we've been dreading
Is nearing the Earth through the vast population
We're nearing the point where we'll need a space station
To hold all the people, too eager to quit it
To keep it in your pants, think before you hit it
To keep our races intact, to ensure man's survival
We're our very best customer and salesman and rival
"Help yourself and I'll be right along"
Is the tired old phrase, the motivation song
And some things you can change and fix with a thought
But the number of things that need more? Quite a lot
You can't save a nation just by a mental notion
There's no telepathic messenger who will fly across the ocean
On the wings and dreams of the oldest dragon
Whilst carrying the remedy in a silver flagon
There's no Wish Police who will answer your calls
And pull down their Fix-it Guns from the racks in the halls
So to move a nation, you might think it funny
But the thing that speaks to all is valid currency: money
To make all the changes you wished up in there
You've got to pull out the cash and flip back your hair
Make a statement that sure, you've no clue what you're doing
But you're willing to try, and while politicians sit stewing
Over who voted how and which bill not to pass
"The elephant says yea; Let's legalize grass!"
None of that matters if you get full support
And when you work for the world, who takes you to court?
So I guess the whole point, the big picture theme
Is that changing the world will take more than a meme
It involves more than **** and ******* and wines
It's more than those selfies and twerking and vines
It's more than that petty stuff you find so amusing
The internet was information, but you all are abusing
You muddle up facts with your silly fan fiction
U and I are ovr because you've bastardized the diction
The syntax is wrong, there are so many errors
These are but one of the grammatical terrors
That plague the nation, plague the world
The torch is passed and the baton twirled
The next generation knows no better
Than to follow our actions to the letter
What can they change when we've taken it all
And compacted it down to six summer weeks small
The information they're using is paraphrased
And the original sources have been erased
To make more room in the data banks
For storing the info on nukes and rebel tanks
Let's all converse and stop these risk stunts
Grab the bat from the player; "Take a risk, not a bunt!"
Change to the world has got to be swift and loud
Stop mumbling ideas when you can shout at the clouds
Let loose the brain you've kept locked away
And shout at the world; let them hear you today
What will I be? Well, I've got to make dough
To make waves in the world and change it, you know
I'll do what I can, within moral reason
To gain leverage on everything and it might become treason
To fix the whole world using ideas and cash
But I'd much rather my back feel the sting of the lash
Than condemn my mind to the essential lobotomy
My only medical surrender will be to phlebotomy
So take out my blood and my money too
If the world's gonna change, I've got to learn to trust you
That will be our base, our motto and creed
To strive for the change fueled by trust, not by greed

why are there people who believe its "poetic" to self harm
it frightens me that there are teenagers who are doing this
to themselves, they're self harming because they think it
is "darkly beautiful" or "sadly romantic" there is nothing
beautiful about the scars covering my skin there is nothing
romantic about being terrified someone, anyone, might see
them, these lines of weakness, that i've placed there myself
it's an addiction, a sick way i clean my head, because
the thoughts jumble up, thoughts of; missing, emptiness,
time, space, names, locations, people, dates, stories, sadness
wrongness, hurt, longing, hate, self loathing, destructiveness
i am no where near proud i fell this deep into a hole this dark
i'm scared of being close to people, i shut myself away,
starving myself to reach "perfection"
because maybe if i am skinny enough to be considered "perfect"
then people wont care, wont notice the pink and purple lines
covering my form. no. there is nothing poetic about sadness
nothing. so stop convincing yourself you want to be a sad
lonely, scared, self destructive "poet"

Obsidian hawks
hang from lamp posts,
lining the Gothic
architecture of our hearts,

the shadows,
turning me yellowish
gray, leak out
life
in the strangest way.
The
silhouettes sway
and moan, listening
to the wind whisper
through their
hair, the stories
of dreams
being embalmed.

These lanterns want
to keep me awake,
longing in the retro-
red, belonging
to the sweet,
the concrete dead.

Bright star,
you look
like garbage
to me.
And these sickle
souls bleed
on everything
in between,
blue moons,
left with traces
of where their halos
used to be,
a halogen lamp
reverie.

Obsidian hawks
mark the page
where the ink
met the river
and decided to
run off,
saving room
for prayer,
or maybe another
layer of meaning,
something,
at least
seemingly true;
I wouldn't know,
but, vultures they say.