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badwords 11h
You saw me once,
in your remembered field—
gold-tongued and delicate,
how convenient.

I was never there
for your virtue.

You made me meek,
a parable in petals,
pressing me
between scripture and spring.

But I split sidewalks.
I stain skin.
I’m the itch in the manicured lawn,
the whisper of dirt
under your white cuffs.

You called me "harmless gold"—
but I poison order.
I’m not your childhood.
I’m your forgetting.

You knelt
not in reverence,
but to prove
you could.

You said
I was a lesson in simplicity—
but I speak in multiplication,
in tongues of seed
and wind.

You want meaning.
I give you
multiplicity.
Mess.
Noise.

I bloom
without permission.
Without you.
Again.
And again.
13h · 36
Jerry's Reboot
badwords 13h
[COLD OPEN – JERRY, STAGE, SPOTLIGHT]
ba-DOWMP bwowm-buhm

The algorithm
isn’t a friend.
It’s an ex
who remembers your weaknesses.
You liked one mango—
now it’s fruit baskets
and tropic-core girls
with ring lights and trauma.

What is “For You”?
I never filled out a form.

[SCENE: JERRY’S APARTMENT – AFTERNOON STATIC]
Kramer explodes in.
Phone in hand,
showing a woman licking a wall
with 1.2 million likes.

“This,” he says, “is content.”
Jerry: “This is crying for help in autoplay.”

“You gotta date the algorithm,”
Kramer instructs.
“A little like,
a little skip,
ghost it, come back with engagement.”

“Like Elaine at brunch?”
“No—like Elaine in an elevator.”

[JERRY STAND-UP SEGUE]
You don’t control TikTok.
You imply preferences,
like a hostage negotiating snack options.

I watched a gutter-cleaning video once.
Now I’m GutterGuy™.
It’s like being typecast
in a movie no one’s filming.

[SCENE: MONK’S CAFÉ – THE GODS CONVENE]
Elaine: “I typed ‘lol’
on a guy’s folding-shirt hack.
Now he thinks we’re married.”

George: “It was a precise fold.”
Elaine: “It was domestic competence, George.”
George sips water, quietly judging his hairline.

He opened one baldness video.
Now it’s testosterone gummies
and former athletes whispering about DHT.

Elaine: “Your phone thinks you’re balding and insecure.”
George: “It’s right.”
Laugh track. But it’s too real.

[SCENE: JERRY’S APARTMENT – NIGHT SHIFT]
All present.
Kramer’s doing a dance no one asked for.
Elaine’s muting strangers.
George is Googling “toupee AI filter.”

Jerry: “I didn’t choose my feed.
It happened to me.”
Swipe—
crying woman, bread ad,
cat in a bonnet.
Swipe—
drone strike, shoe review,
guy sobbing in a gym mirror.

Kramer: “It’s curated chaos.”
Elaine: “It’s aesthetic despair.”
George: “It’s my mother,
if she could code.”

[JERRY STAND-UP SEGUE]
Targeted ads are ghost stories.
“You still thinking about that rash?”
“You cried once at 2am.
Here’s a diffuser shaped like a mushroom.”

We’ve invented a marketplace
for moods.
An etiquette of optics.
It’s all affect—
with subtitles.

[CLOSING SCENE: PUTTY RETURNS, UNBLINKING]
“I don’t use TikTok,”
he says.
“I just watch my microwave.”

[SLOW AKWARD ZOOM TO PUTTY'S UNFLICHING STOICISM]

Cut to:
the microwave light,
buzzing.
An egg turns.

[CREDITS – BUT LOUDER, MORE AGGRESSIVE]
ba-DOWMP ba-DAHHM dowm dowm dowm
NETFLIX – now with ads.
a pilot episode, in poetic rerun

A reply to:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5008431/querulous/
2d · 73
Soft Underbelly
I went out for a smoke —
designated zone, past the edge of the lot,
where sin is sanctioned, but not quite embraced.
And she followed.
Padding silent and striped,
crying between cracked pavement and weeds,
a chorus only I could seem to hear.

I spoke her tongue in broken clicks,
offered the stage of my lap like a velvet throne.
She took it.
Grime on her fur, weather etched in the knots.
Not pet-store plush. Not Stoney.
She wore the street like a second skin
and let me stroke the truth of it.

A man wandered past —
she fled.
Cried her practiced cry.
I watched her pivot:
a charlatan with claws retracted,
an actor with a one-line script:
"Feed me. Touch me. Prove you see me."

And I saw myself,
another feral thing with a soft underbelly,
crying just right
at just the right time
hoping someone might pay the toll
to feel needed.

Then, the punchline —
I'd left my key inside the room.
Three visits to the boy at the desk,
each more tragic than the last:
"Cat food?"
"Disposable bowl?"
"Locked out — again."

And what if this is the game?
What if survival is simply knowing
when to purr and when to bolt?
What if this is the love I know how to earn —
transient, scrappy,
earned in cigarettes and silence,
lost between door frames and secondhand smoke?

She cried again in the distance.
I didn’t follow.
Tonight I let the trap remain unsprung.
2d · 68
Lost & Found
The bell around its neck had no jingle.
Frayed collar, faint stripes—
somewhere between Bengal and ghost.
It slipped past my open door
like it knew the shape of sadness
without needing to ask.

I’d seen it before—
roaming the motel lot,
low to the ground
but proud, not broken.
Trim, not starving.
Abandoned, maybe—
like me.

I walked to the store,
bought tuna, pâté,
chicken in gravy,
all the things I’d want
if I didn’t have words
to ask for what I needed.
I left a dish outside my door,
another inside,
and cracked the door
as far as the chain would allow.

It cried.
Not for food—
I know that cry.
I’ve made that cry.
It was looking for something
that used to answer back.

It wandered in,
sniffed the corners like déjà vu.
Didn’t touch the food.
Didn’t stay long.
But it saw me.
And I saw it.

We were both
waiting for someone
to come home
who wouldn’t.
3d · 44
'Never Should'
Whose pen commands the garden of her grief?
The vines grow perfect—never choke the gate.
Each thorn arranged, like pain seeks its relief
In blooms too neat to carry real weight.

She sings like sirens housed in mirrored halls,
A practiced ache that never truly breaks.
Each echo wears a mask, each silence stalls—
A thousand deaths, but none that rattle stakes.

Is she the ghost, or just the mourning veil?
A candle lit to cast a gentler shade?
The wax runs clear, the flame too soft to flail—
Like sorrow dressed for show, not meant to fade.
#iambicpentameter #justsayno #theworst #ironicpantamter
3d · 40
Cycles
The plains of the highlands were dry
Succulents, monsoons, morning dew
Arid land yet perched homes near the sky
Some existence simply making due

The string and the tether
Something more than ever
A clear sky, no weather
This longing for better

Storms see the means
Clouds reconvene
Darken the sky
Electrify

The people they flee
Escape travesty
Flashes as scores strike the ground
Pelting rain, deafening sound

Everything built
Falls too fast
Usurpers of
Our mother’s throne

Years of nature
To atone
Green she creeps
Now she’s alone

Of failure,
Forgotten, unknown
3d · 37
Backstage
You say you are the background—
but I've seen the way shadows bend light.
Even absence can leave fingerprints
on the glass we think is clean.

To recede is its own kind of dance—
a soft gravity, pulling without touch.
There is power in being still,
but stillness too has shape.

Are you silence?
Or are you waiting to be named?
Because background is never neutral.
It is the stage. The scent. The sky that swallows all.

And I don’t fear what hides—
only what hides in beauty.

*If you speak, I’ll listen—not to echo, but to understand.
5d · 1.4k
Hourly
They want bodies.
Warm, compliant bodies. Moving parts.
Hands that open doors and flip switches.
Spines that bend but don’t break.
They want eight hours of labor, plus the commute,
plus the side hustle,
plus the ever-present smile that says,
"I’m lucky to be here."

But bodies need rest.
And there is nowhere to rest.
No shoebox. No storage unit.
No couch, no floor, no friend with a spare key.
Just asphalt and backseats—if you’re lucky.
Just parking lots and fear and pretending to be fine.

We’re told to buy the things that prove we’ve made it:
the ergonomic chair, the smart toaster,
the streaming subscription that numbs the noise.
But where do we put it?
Where do we live with it?
They expect us to consume while we disappear.

They want machines
—but with human elegance.
They want efficiency
—but with soul.
They want labor without the laborer’s needs.

We are the product and the producer.
The face and the function.
They demand dignity at the front desk,
but deny it in the zoning map.

We work full time,
and still live in our cars.
If we have one.
If it hasn’t been towed or repossessed.
If there’s a safe place to park without being harassed.

Why?
Why can you clock in at dawn,
and still sleep under stars you didn’t wish for?

Because they want bodies.
But they do not want the burden of keeping us alive.
6d · 85
No Answer
Don’t ******* call me
like you didn’t grind me down
to bone and breathless compliance.

Don’t ask how I’m healing
when you handed me the wounds.

You used my body
like it was a rental—
no oil change, no thank-you.
Just mileage and abandonment.

You praised my resilience
while watching me split.
You called me devoted
because I crawled back bleeding.

I was your hospice—
not your lover.
Your proof of concept,
not your partner.
And now you wear compassion
like a new coat
over the same rot.

I see what you’re doing.

You want my silence
to sanitize your story.
You want to use my dignity
as a character reference.

You want me to pretend
you didn’t **** me raw,
leave me rawer,
and call it love.

You want me to pick up
just so you can hang up
with a cleaner conscience.

But I’ve learned
that ghosts don’t need phones.
And abusers don’t get closure.

So here it is:
the only call you’ll get—
straight from the wreckage
you refused to name:

You don’t get to rewrite me.
You don’t get to remember me gently.
You don’t get to touch this ruin
with clean hands.
(for every pantomime of care)

Work inspired by:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5021571/pretend-calls/

#NSFW
(for my floofy derpy boi)*

You were never built for stealth—
a black blur of static and fluff,
three feet tall on hind legs
but softer than garage smoke in summer.

Bugs survived you.
Couches forgave you.
And every room you entered
adjusted to your gravitational field.

They named you S.T.P.—
some lubricant ghost from Arizona asphalt,
but I knew you were more riff than oil,
a slow groove in cat form.
So I called you Stoney.

Because you looked like a soundcheck
and moved like a stoner god,
missing flies with commitment
and knocking over your own shadow
just to watch it fall.

You were the only thing in that house
that didn’t hide.
You lived—floofy and absurd,
like a bassline with fur.

And now you’re somewhere else,
in a room I can’t enter.
Still shedding joy on furniture
I no longer recognize.

But I hope you’re derping with pride,
haunting someone else’s blinds,
letting your purr shake loose
whatever silence they carry.

I still hear you sometimes,
a phantom thunk from shelf to floor.
A tail flick in memory’s corner.
Still Stoney. Still rolling.
Step by step,
no louder than breath—
I walk beside
what isn’t mine to name.

No banners,
no blueprints,
just this sound
of stone learning softness.

You open a window.
I keep the door unlatched.

Let fear finish its echo.
Let the dark chants drift.

Not all ruin is ending.
Some of it
is soil.
I arrive quietly,
because I know I don't leave quietly.
Every step is softened,
each word pre-tasted,
diluted in self-doubt
and sweetened with disclaimer.

They say I’m gentle.
They say I’m thoughtful.
They don’t see the wreckage bloom
in the wake of my metaphors.
I hug with gravity.
I whisper like avalanche.

I’m not trying to destroy.
I just forget
that some people are still scaffolding
and I bring wind.

I ask questions
knowing they splinter.
I give compliments
that rewire.
I see the story
beneath your story—
and I read it aloud by accident.

I am the kind of weight
that studies its own shadow
and still cracks the floor.
I don’t want to flatten.
I don’t want to fix.
I just… notice.
And noticing is loud
when your presence has a sound.

Sometimes I wish
I could show up in pieces—
send only the smile,
or the idea,
or the part that says it’s okay to stay asleep.
But I come whole,
and I come humming.

I come rumbling.

I awake you with my horning
when you wish to sleep in.
So early in the morning,
this pavement has been weeping—

The ruin it is keeping,
a context of your dreaming.
Backed-up traffic beeping,
inner-child screaming.
*"We’re sorry for the disturbance.*
*We’re just trying to make this better for everyone".*
7d · 74
Onboarding
Welcome, new hire—
your ID badge glows faintly in metaphor.
Please ignore the smoke in the atrium;
that’s just your last identity burning politely.

You clocked in with caution,
but brought your whole chest.
Unfiltered.
Unbowed.
Wearing a tie made of unresolved myth
and a name tag that said: Here to try again.

Slide 1:
You do not disappear.
You are not drawn in like a breath and forgotten.
You are the wind through the lungs of others,
and sometimes, a storm in their ribs.
Your only fear?
That your truth might echo too loud and silence someone else’s.

Slide 2:
You have met the sacred in many disguises.
You know the difference between
an altar and a trapdoor.
You walk soft—
not because you’re scared,
but because you know what breaks.

Slide 3:
You said yes.
To the howl.
To the hush.
To the mess wrapped in metaphor.
You do not fear the strange.
You witness it with kindness.

Slide 4:
You confessed the devil’s games
and offered him a chair.
You name the urge to be mirrored,
to be worshipped,
to be understood too easily—
and let it pass through you
without calling it love.

Slide 5:
You have worn every role—
Sculptor. Statue. Ghost.
You’ve laid down the scripts,
tossed the mask,
and simply said:
“I will be here, but I will not be your altar.”

And so, Employee #8675309
you are cleared for full emotional operations.

There is no manual for this role.
There is only the weather
you carry with grace.

Now clock out. Or don’t.
The storm's in good hands either way.
Mar 30 · 128
Engulf
badwords Mar 30
I was born beneath a stovetop sermon,
raised on smoke and the echo of “just like him.”
She lit the burner,
called it love,
then blamed the fire when I blistered.

I learned early:
affection has teeth.
That mirrors are weapons
if someone else gets to hold the frame.

So I went looking—
not for love,
but for permission.
To be, without revision.
To feel, without rehearsal.

And they came,
each with open arms
and blueprints in their back pockets.
They didn’t say change.
They said better.
They meant less.

I gave what I could,
which was always everything.
And when that wasn’t enough—
I gave the shape of myself too.

But still I stood.
Not clean. Not cured.
Just standing.
Wobbly maybe, but mine.

Now, here—again—
I feel the heat in the glance,
the tremor in the words:
"Don’t idealize me."
But isn’t that the perfect bait?

Still, I stay.
Still, I watch.
Because I’ve learned to name the difference
between a flame and a forge.

I am not the boy at the stove anymore.
I am the man with the match—
and the scars to prove
I know when to walk away
and when to burn with purpose.

So if I burn now,
it will not be in silence.
It will not be for someone else’s comfort.

It will be because I chose
to stand in the fire
as myself,
and finally,
stay.
Engulf is a raw, introspective free verse poem that explores the psychological weight of childhood trauma, the complexities of romantic relationships shaped by formative wounds, and the slow journey toward self-reclamation. The speaker reflects on being cast in the shadow of a parent’s unresolved resentment, inheriting emotional roles not of their own making. This early dynamic becomes a foundation for a series of adult relationships in which affection is offered only on the condition of transformation—of becoming someone safer, more malleable, more convenient.

Using fire as a recurring metaphor—both as danger and as forge—the poem charts a movement from vulnerability to clarity. The speaker recognizes a lifelong tendency to over-invest, to seek validation at the cost of self, and ultimately, to mistake manipulation for intimacy. Rather than arriving at a dramatic ******, Engulf builds toward quiet resolve: the decision to stand in one’s own fire, no longer shaped by external blueprints, no longer asking permission to exist as is.

In Engulf, the author confronts the cyclical nature of emotional projection and internalized identity distortion. The poem serves as both personal reckoning and a broader commentary on how unresolved familial dynamics often echo into adult relationships. Rather than casting blame, the piece investigates the subtle ways in which individuals are conditioned to compromise their authenticity in pursuit of love and acceptance.

The poet's intent is not to moralize or to position the speaker as a victim, but to depict a moment of awakening: a realization that authenticity, though difficult and often lonely, is preferable to the ongoing erosion of self. With restrained emotional language and clear metaphorical resonance, Engulf offers a nuanced perspective on healing—not as a destination, but as a commitment to remain whole in the face of recurring patterns.
Mar 29 · 92
Unnecessary
badwords Mar 29
I saw my voice walk out the mouth of you.
It sounded cleaner—less afraid to land.
The metaphors, the weight, the angle too—
but carried with a sharper, steadier hand.

You said the thing I’d almost thought to say,
but smoothed the edge I left too raw, too late.
I watched it move with grace I couldn’t fake,
like watching someone else translate my fate.

I never claimed the patent for the ache,
but still, it stung to see it said so well.
You didn’t steal—no lines for me to stake—
just haunted me with how your cadence fell.

I’m not the first, and God, I’m not the best.
But still I hoped I had a tone that stayed.
And when you spoke it cleaner from your chest,
I felt my outline tremble, then obey.

I called it kin, then caught myself and stalled.
Would that make me a fraud, or just a root?
A prototype? A first-run demo called
to clap for someone dressed in better truth?

I don’t resent it—no, I feel relief.
To hear my half-formed shapes come into form.
But still I sit beneath this quiet grief:
was I the signal, or just part of the swarm?
#smh

Yeah, that iambic pentameter, get your parent's permission before tying this at home.
Mar 29 · 91
I Saw My Style Walk By
badwords Mar 29
I saw my style walk by one day—
not on my tongue, but hers.
She wore it sharp, the proper way,
no fumbling metaphors.

She took the chords I tried to play
and sang them in a key
that made the notes behave, obey—
they never did for me.

She moved like smoke I meant to catch
but always blew too soon.
Her echo had a cleaner scratch,
my radio, in tune.

I felt my fingerprints, but faint—
like whispers through a wall.
Not loud enough to make a claim,
but loud enough to fall.

I didn’t feel erased, or robbed,
or flattered to the core.
Just grateful I had once been sobbed—
and now, I’m sung once more.
(and she looked better in it)
Mar 29 · 66
Skin
badwords Mar 29
I wore Thread,
but my stitching showed.
You wear it seamless,
like it was always there.

I wore Smoke,
clumsy in my spirals.
You exhale form,
as if the shape were native.

I wore Glass,
cut myself admiring
the sharpness.
You hold it like truth.

I wore Rope
to keep from drifting.
You tie it into symbols
I never thought to write.

What I wore
felt like costume.

What you wear
feels like skin.

I don’t resent it.
Only wonder
if I was
just trying you on
before you arrived.
Mar 28 · 89
Dissolution
badwords Mar 28
The cacophony of life
has left me deaf
muted and drowned
in the rancor

This lonely crowd
that engulfs me
Phones set to 'Loud'
Invisibility

So close to touch
So far away
Robbed and such
'Social' dismay


A machine demanding more.
Mar 28 · 69
Scavenger’s Grace
badwords Mar 28
She comes
when the feast is over—
not to take,
but to finish
what rot has begun.

The bones,
long stripped of love,
call her.
They do not mourn
the absence of meat.
They beg
to be remembered.

Yes,
her wings are tarred
with blame,
her beak cracked
on shame's old fruit—
but who else
dares clean
what grief leaves behind?

The lambs
cannot stomach endings.
The lions
forget to bury.

She is
the silence
after screaming,
the undertaker
no one thanks.

They say she poisons.
But poison too
is medicine
in the right dose,
at the right time.

Let her purge
what clings.
Let her feed
on what must not follow.

Not cursed—
essential.
Not cruel—
cleansing.

She weeps,
yes.
But only for the living
who hoard their dead.
Mar 28 · 98
Split Tongues
badwords Mar 28
You speak
in linen threads,
crease the page
with careful weight.

I write
like a wire frays—
all snap
and static.

You linger.
I lunge.
You plant quiet seeds.
I strike the flint
and call it bloom.

We are not
the same instrument.
Your hush
doesn’t dull my clang.
My heat
doesn’t melt your frame.

There is no prize
for loudness.
No shame
in restraint.

But still,
we each mistook the other
for the reason to stop.

As if difference
were subtraction.
As if one voice
could ever
void another.

Let’s not play
at vanishing.
Let’s speak
in split tongues—
you in dusk,
me in flame—
and let the echo
be richer
for it.
You know who you are.
Mar 27 · 82
Patterns
badwords Mar 27
That five-seven-five is a scam,
Just nature plus seasonal spam.
A frog in a bog—
Wow! A leaf! And some fog!
It’s a tweet with a syllable jam.

Now limericks think they’re so sly,
With their jigs and their wink of the eye.
But their punchlines grow stale,
Like a bar yuck from Yale—
It’s the dad joke of poetry. Why?

Oh Shakespeare, forgive what’s been done—
Fourteen lines on a love that won’t run.
With their iambic moans,
And romanticized groans—
They're just Tinder swipes dressed as the sun.

Repetition’s the name of its game,
But by stanza three, it’s all shame.
You repeat and repeat,
Till your brain hits delete—
Was it clever, or just all the same?

Acrostics spell TRY HARD down the side,
A format no critic can abide.
Each line bends and breaks,
Just for symmetry’s sake—
And the message gets lost in the ride.

Free verse gets a pass, but just barely—
Too often it screams “Look, I’m arty!”
With no rhythm or aim,
Just vibes and a name—
Like a drunk giving TED Talks at parties.

---

There once was a muse unconfined,
Who laughed at each rule tightly lined.
When pure thought took flight,
It outshone every rite—
For raw truth outclasses form every time.
Mar 26 · 81
Untold Breathing
badwords Mar 26
Begin with “Life is a journey,” or
“Time is a river,”
or something about stars.

Mention the heart—
how it breaks,
how it mends,
how it’s brave,
how it bends.

Say “you are enough”
in a way that sounds new
(but isn’t).

Include a flower.
Or a child.
Or a sunrise that doesn’t judge you.

Avoid sharp things—
no teeth,
no blood,
no ***,
no history.

Make sure it ends
with a soft exhale,
a bow-tied truth
no one has to feel.

Then title it something
like Breathe
or Unfold.

And wait
for the shares.
Mar 26 · 81
Rainbows
badwords Mar 26
I name the sky
but not the ceiling
The walls comply
without revealing

A maze of flesh
worn to coping
False gods enmesh
the soul in hoping

I woke too late
to heed the charm
This woven state—
a false alarm

I held the lie
like a child holds breath
Afraid to cry,
afraid of death

A child no more
but not yet formed
A half-closed door
by silence warmed

I mimic grace
with borrowed limbs
A haunted face
beneath the hymns

Not quite awake
yet never dreaming
The seams all ache
from constant seeming

And if I scream—
does it resound?
Or just a dream
that makes no sound?

Beneath the breath
a stillness waits
A second death
with no clean gates

The body hums
its loaded prayer
But all becomes
a vacant stare

Syntax frays
beneath the thought
What god obeys
the self I’m not?

I claw through names
but none will stay
Each shape reclaims
then rots away

The self, a gloss
on leaking form
A dream of loss
pretending norm

No center holds—
it never did
Just nested folds
of what I hid

No I. No you.
No real disguise.
Just tunnels through
abandoned skies

The witness breathes
without a lung
No scripts, no sheaths
No native tongue

It does not choose
or seek reply
It does not lose
It does not die

Not bound by pain
yet made of pain
Not lost, not sane—
not mind, not brain

It watched me be
then watched me break
It was not me—
but stayed awake

A hollow hush
beneath all sound
A pulse, a crush
not outer-bound

Throughout it all
I exist
A novel fall
Lines betwixt

Animals, a sea adrift
Feeding on the cheapest rift
A pattern to be missed
when rhymes end in a weak fit
Mar 25 · 107
Learn to Swim
badwords Mar 25
Now gather close and lend your ear,
I’ll tell a tale both strange and dear—
Of salt and glass and love gone pale,
Of one who served in Fish Jail.

A tankman by the name of none,
Just “Tankmaster,” the warden’s son.
He walked the rows and knew each fin,
The grumpy cod, the lion’s grin.

He wore his keys like jangling pride,
With boots that sloshed from side to side.
He spoke to eels, he joked with rays,
He knew the sea in landlocked ways.

The place was bleak, a briny tomb,
All buzzing lights and filtered gloom.
A place for fish too odd to show,
Too fierce, too big, too wild to go.

A seahorse thief, a pouting shark,
A tuna once struck lightning's spark.
Each tank a tale, each fin a crime—
He kept them safe, and served his time.

And oh, the peace! The sacred drag
Of daily rounds, of soggy flag,
Of filter hum and crabby chat—
No storm could shake a life like that.

But then one day a box arrived—
The tape was torn, the air contrived.
It bore no label, bore no name,
Just stenciled letters: S.A.M.

Inside she crouched, not beast, not girl,
With skin the shade of oyster pearl.
A filament above her brow
Did twitch and glow—but none knew how.

Her form was human, more or less,
But wore the sea like Sunday dress.
Her teeth were sharp, her smile wide—
A maw that angels couldn’t guide.

She tapped the glass, but not for aid—
It felt more like a masquerade.
She watched him back. She knew his gait.
And something shifted in his fate.

Now Tankmaster, once firm of tread,
Found footsteps drifting soft instead.
He passed her tank with careful grace,
Avoiding, yet... returning face.

Her lure would glow, a golden thread,
That shimmered just above her head.
It danced like flame, but cool and slow—
A phantom pulse, a wanton show.

It flickered once when none were near,
A signal soft, a beckon clear.
And though he knew the predator's way,
He lingered just a breath too gray.

She shifted hues, an artist bold—
From violet dusk to kelp-leaf gold.
She'd mirror him, like rippled glass,
Her moods a mask no man could pass.

She watched him more with every day,
Her colors swelling like a sway.
He told himself it meant rapport—
Not instinct, not a practiced lore.

And though he saw her needle smile,
It struck him sweet, not full of guile.
For predators may grin with glee,
But he was not her enemy.

He dreamed of light beneath the waves,
Of eyes that saw and hearts that craved.
Her glow became his north, his myth—
His compass in the ocean’s drift.

By night he found excuses thin,
To mop the floor or check a fin.
And every time, he’d catch that gleam—
The pulse, the flash, the clever scheme.

His rules grew loose, his grip grew slack,
The Tankmaster had turned his back.
She hadn’t begged, she’d never asked—
But oh, how sweetly she unmasked.

And when the lights above went low,
She pulsed again, that siren glow.
He knew it then—though far too late—
He’d nibbled clean upon the bait.

They say some love is loud with heat,
With pounding chests and lightning feet.
But his was slow, like tides that turn—
A creeping ache, a patient burn.

He’d watch her float in silent grace,
A stillness draped across her face.
She mirrored him in shape and shade,
A ghost of all the things he’d prayed.

Her aquaskin would blush and bloom
In tones that made the whole tank swoon.
And every shift—a secret told,
A myth half-sung, a promise bold.

She showed him things no fish had shown—
A mimic curl, a moaning tone,
A pattern traced in reef and limb
That spelled out, "you belong with him."

He told her tales of years gone dry,
Of losses stacked like cages high.
She’d pulse in blues that swore she knew,
And shift to amber, raw and true.

And when he laughed, she turned to jade,
As if to say, “You’re safe, you’ve stayed.”
She never spoke—no word, no vow—
But love, he swore, was here and now.

She swam in rings around his core,
And whispered with her glowing lure.
Each day he stood a little less—
Each night he dreamt of ocean dress.

And oh, those dreams! So sharp, so wide—
He saw her walking at his side.
On land she danced with human poise,
But still her teeth—still sharp, no noise.

He pictured homes beneath the waves,
Where kelp would sway and time behaves.
He saw a place where both might live—
If he would take, and she would give.

Then came the night she did not shine.
Her lure was dim. Her hues, benign.
She drifted slow. Her glow grew slack.
He thought she’d gone—she floated back.

And in that hush, she pressed her hand
Against the glass like silt and sand.
Her gaze said, This is not a game.
Her silence carved into his name.

“I cannot stay,” she didn’t say.
“But you could come. You could obey.”
“You could unmake the world you guard.”
“Unlock the tanks. Unmoor the yard.”

And he—our man, our warden proud—
Felt something snap beneath the shroud.
He whispered, Yes, with breath unsure.
And followed her beyond the door.

The night was thick with ocean’s breath,
A hush that smelled like brine and death.
The Tankmaster moved like a prayer,
Unlatching doors with tender care.

The pumps went quiet. Lights went dim.
The jail gave up its bones to him.
He breached the final safety line—
Not for escape, but love divine.

S.A.M. awaited in the drain,
Her lure aglow, her eyes arcane.
She did not speak—she simply turned,
And through the floodgates, silence churned.

He followed barefoot, half-aware,
That salt replaced the county air.
His boots stayed dry. His lungs stayed wet.
And yet, he hadn’t drowned. Not yet.

She led him past the harbor’s bend,
Where sea begins and maps must end.
She said, in colors, “This is home.”
And gestured down through dark and foam.

He nodded once, and left the shore.
No suitcase. No regrets. No door.
His name dissolved like sugar glass—
The last to call him “master” passed.

Down, down they fell through ink and hush,
Through ruins dressed in coral blush.
Where whale bones served as banquet halls,
And lanternfish lit shattered walls.

Her kingdom was a fractured reef,
Built not of joy, but loss and grief.
Yet still she smiled, with glowing pride,
And swam along her darker side.

She crowned him with a band of ****,
She fed him silt and urged him, “Breathe.”
She curled around him, fin to chest,
And whispered lies that felt like rest.

And he, now gilled, now hollow-eyed,
Declared her queen, declared her bride.
He carved her name in drifting sand—
A vow no air could understand.

The sea grew thick. The current rough.
But he was hers. That was enough.
He gave his breath. He gave his will.
He thought it love.

He does so still.

The Queen below was radiant,
But never still, nor covenant.
She shimmered strange from hour to hour—
A tide of charm, a pulse of power.

At first she wrapped around his chest,
A song of kelp, a weightless nest.
But soon her glow began to shift—
From tender teal to cold and swift.

She twirled with others near the wrecks,
With ribboned fins and flexing necks.
She sang to creatures fierce and free—
And barely once she glanced at he.

He watched her from a crumbled spire,
His chest a forge without a fire.
She used to pulse in time with him—
Now colors danced for something dim.

He called her name in bubbles bare,
But water doesn’t carry care.
She laughed with lips he’d once believed,
And left him like the rest—bereaved.

His body changed in silent ways—
A fading man, a fish half-raised.
His bones grew soft, his voice grew mute,
His purpose crushed beneath her boot.

One morning brought a mimic form—
A copy of his old, worn norm.
It swam in loops, a cruel ballet—
While she watched, then turned away.

He found his heart inside a shell,
A fossil soaked in personal hell.
He held it close, then let it go—
There’s no heartbeat that deep below.

He tried to love her still, in bits.
To catch her gaze in passing fits.
But she had gone where lures must lead—
To newer mouths, to fresher need.

He lay beneath a reef of teeth,
Of suitors stacked in shame beneath.
And still she smiled. And still she danced.
And he, the fool, remained entranced.

But one day came the breaking tide,
The pull that said: “You’re not her pride.”
And with a groan and shattered limb,
He rose from depths that once held him.

His skin peeled back to something raw.
His lungs returned in gasping awe.
He kicked through bones and tangled moss—
Through everything he’d loved and lost.

He reached the surface, torn and thin.
And when he gasped, the world breathed in.
But even then—though free from harm—
He felt the echo of her arm.

He broke the tide like thunder’s crack,
The ocean screaming at his back.
His limbs were torn, his vision grey—
But he had left. She made him pay.

The air was knives. The sun, a blade.
Each breath he took, a price he paid.
But breath it was, and sky was sky,
And gulls don't lie the way fish lie.

He crawled ashore on beaches sand,
A place untouched by S.A.M.'s hand.
The moss was wet, the earth was kind,
And quiet tried to calm his mind.

He walked alone through cedar groves,
Through fog that curled like ocean loaves.
No more the hum of filtered lies—
Just wind and soil and open skies.

Yet still, by puddle, lake, or pond,
He’d feel the ache of something fond.
A flicker here. A whisper there.
Her glow still danced behind his stare.

At night he’d dream of reef and wreck,
Of tendrils coiled around his neck.
And some mornings, he’d almost swear
He missed the silence of her stare.

But he stayed dry. He stayed alone.
He healed in moss, in bark and bone.
He found new music in the rain,
New prayer in fog, new joy in pain.

And once beneath a storm-split moon,
He stood atop a coastal dune.
And far beyond the cliffs and kelp,
He saw a flicker—small, but felt.

A single pulse. A distant gleam.
Too faint to chase. Too real to dream.
He smiled—not wide, not full, not proud—
But soft, and small, and not too loud.

Not joy. Not rage. Not even grief.
Just quiet peace, and firm belief
That some survive, though torn apart,
And carry teeth marks in their heart.
Learn to Swim is an allegorical folk epic rendered in verse, drawing from early Americana tall-tale traditions and deep-sea surrealism to tell the story of a love that becomes a slow descent into erasure. It follows a nameless "Tankmaster"—a solitary figure tending to a vast and uncanny aquarium—whose life is upended by the arrival of a mysterious creature known only as S.A.M. (Sentient Aquatic Mermadic).

Through the lens of bioluminescent seduction, mirrored intimacy, and the illusion of mutual escape, the poem charts the journey from enchantment to entrapment, abandonment, and ultimately a brutal emergence. Each movement is layered with metaphor: aquariums as prisons, lures as emotional manipulation, the ocean’s depths as both love and loss.

The intent behind the piece is to explore the psychological terrain of narcissistic abuse and emotional exploitation—but to do so at a distance, through fable, fantasy, and folklore. It is a deeply personal myth masked in Americana voicework, designed to preserve the rawness of grief while disarming its defenses. In the end, Learn to Swim is not a love story—it’s a survival song.
badwords Mar 24
I didn’t love her for who she was.
Not really.
I loved her because she was like me.

Not the version of me I show the world—
But the version I’ve buried,
the one who knows how to manipulate affection,
who confuses attention for intimacy,
who’s played roles to survive.

She was familiar.
And I thought…
if I could love her,
if I could see past the mask and still choose her—
maybe someone could do the same for me.

Maybe I wasn’t beyond redemption.
Maybe sociopaths could be saved
by the very thing we pretend to offer:
real love.

But she wasn’t ready.
Maybe she never will be.
She did what I used to do—
took the love and called it useful,
until it wasn’t.

And now I’m left holding this hollow ache—
not just from losing her,
but from losing the illusion
that someone like me could ever be seen
and still be chosen.
“I Thought Loving Her Would Save Me” is a confessional monologue rendered in poetic prose. It navigates the aftermath of a relationship not defined by romance, but by reflection—of the self, of old patterns, and of the impossible desire to heal through another.

Rather than villainizing the subject, the piece explores the complex emotional terrain of projection and recognition. The narrator sees in their partner the shadow of who they once were—someone manipulative, survival-driven, emotionally transactional—and believes that by offering unconditional love to this reflection, they might redeem those same traits within themselves.

The work hinges on a brutal emotional truth: that the attempt to love someone who embodies your worst instincts may be less about connection, and more about a longing to be seen, understood, and ultimately loved despite one's own flaws.

At its core, the piece is about the collapse of an illusion: that love alone can save us from ourselves. The artist grapples with rejection not as a singular heartbreak, but as a symbolic unraveling of hope—for change, for worthiness, for redemption.

The tone is unflinching yet compassionate, offering no excuses but seeking clarity. It is both self-indictment and elegy, both mourning and a quiet act of liberation.
badwords Mar 19
I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of ******
I'm a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb
I am a world's forgotten boy
The one who searches and destroys
Honey, gotta help me, please
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, detonate for me
Look out, honey, 'cause I'm using technology
Ain't got time to make no apology
Soul radiation in the dead of night
Love in the middle of a firefight
Honey, gotta strike me blind
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, penetrate my mind
And I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching, searching to destroy
And honey, I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching only to destroy
Look out, honey, 'cause I'm using technology
Ain't got time to make no apology
Soul radiation in the dead of night
Love in the middle of a firefight
Honey, gotta strike me blind
Somebody gotta save my soul
Baby, penetrate my mind
And I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching, searching to destroy
And honey, I'm the world's forgotten boy
The one who's searching, searching to destroy
Forgotten boy
Forgotten boy
Forgotten boy
Said, hey, forgotten boy, said
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Search & Destroy by Iggy Pop

https://youtu.be/-jiU5pEgzzY?si=dVAbviwaE76OUKw_

Check Out My HePo Mix-Tape:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/135545/badwords-music-lyrics/
Mar 15 · 581
Hello, Poetry?
badwords Mar 15
Welcome, dear artist, step into the light—
Paint on your pleasure, make your grin tight.
The crowd here is eager, the clapping is loud,
But only for those who have clapped for the crowd.

Powder your cheeks with engagement and grace,
Lace up your lips in reciprocal praise.
A bow for a bow, a sigh for a sigh,
Wink at the watchers or wither and die.

Here in the House where the hollow hands meet,
The loveliest dancers must stay on their feet.
A round of applause is a token to spend,
But spend it too slowly, and you’ll find it ends.

The jesters all juggle, the poets all moan,
The painters trade colors but none of their own.
Each stroke, each verse, each desperate tune,
Not meant to be felt—just meant to be hewn.

For love is a fiction, and merit a game,
A trick of the trade, a conjuring name.
So curtsy, dear artist, and play your part—
For silence here is the end of art.
Mar 13 · 773
Bonds
badwords Mar 13
Oxygen, two 'me's'
We expire
Oxygen in threes
Ozone acquired

Ménage à trois
Three the same
Cards to draw
A hand, a game

One former
Introduce carbon
A home? or,
Latter two undone?

Life & death
2:1
Gasp for breath
Toxic, run

Detectors
Cry out loud!
Defectors;
Poison we laud

Breathe deep
Or sweet release
Eternal sleep
If you please

When your atoms bond
Bonds is a poem that explores the fluid and often precarious nature of polyamorous relationships through the lens of chemistry. Using molecular structures as an extended metaphor, the poem illustrates how individuals (atoms) form bonds that can be either life-sustaining or toxic. It begins with the stability of a dyadic relationship (O₂) before shifting into the volatility of a triadic bond (O₃), highlighting the unpredictable nature of introducing a third partner.

The introduction of carbon further destabilizes the relationship, raising the question of whether new elements strengthen or destroy existing connections. As the poem progresses, it introduces carbon monoxide (CO), a silent and lethal gas, as a symbol of the ease with which one can succumb to emotional suffocation or self-destruction. The final stanzas present a choice—whether to embrace the complexities of the bonds or to surrender to an escape that is both literal and metaphorical.

The poet employs scientific language to dissect the emotional intricacies of polyamory, using chemical bonding as a framework to discuss intimacy, instability, and dissolution. By framing each individual as an atom, the poem presents relationships as inherently reactive—some bonds are strong, some transient, and others quietly corrosive. The progression from O₂ to O₃ mirrors the transition from monogamy to polyamory, highlighting both the excitement and fragility of expanding relational dynamics.

The use of carbon monoxide (CO) is particularly poignant, serving as both a literal reference to an accessible means of release and a metaphor for the slow, unnoticed suffocation that can occur within a deteriorating or imbalanced relationship. The poet subtly critiques the way people sometimes romanticize toxicity (“Poison we laud”) while also acknowledging the weight of personal agency in choosing whether to remain in or exit a connection. The closing line, “When your atoms bond,” leaves the reader with an open-ended reflection on the nature of relationships—do they create, destroy, or simply change form?

By intertwining chemistry with human emotion, the poem presents an unflinching yet poetic look at the risks, rewards, and potential consequences of forming and breaking bonds.
Mar 10 · 560
Process
badwords Mar 10
I died
A life worth living
is a life worth dying

or
so I was sold

I still smell you
in my brain

A dumpster fire
to re-train

And loose
Capitulate

For an absence of identity within
Mar 10 · 112
Reflections
badwords Mar 10
Alas, things...
come to pass
the camera
the mirror

they are the same

reflections
reproductions

a perspective.
badwords Mar 9
You know what, Stuart, I like you.
You're not like the other people,
Here, in the trailer park.
Oh, don't go get me wrong!
They're fine people,
They're good Americans!
But they're content to sit back,
Maybe Watch a little Mork and Mindy on channel 57,
Maybe kick back a cool, Coors™ 16-ouncer.
They're good, fine people, Stuart.

But they don't know,
What the queers are doing to the soil...

You know that Jonny Wurster kid,
The kid that delivers papers in the neighborhood?
He's a fine kid.
Some of the neighbors say he smokes crack,
But I don't believe it.
Anyway, for his tenth birthday,
All he wanted was a Burrow Owl.
Kept bugging his old man.
"Dad, get me a burrow owl.
I'll never ask for anything else as long as I live."
So the guy breaks down and buys him a burrow owl.

Anyway, 10:30, the other night,
I go out in my yard, and there's the Wurster kid,
Looking up in the trees.
I say, "What are you looking for?"
He says "I'm looking for my burrow owl."
I say, "Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick!
Everybody knows the burrow owl lives. In a hole. In the ground.
Why the hell do you think they call it a burrow owl, anyway?"

Now Stuart, do you think a kid like that is going to know what the queers are doing to the soil?

I first became aware of this about ten years ago,
The summer my oldest boy, Bill Jr. died.
You know that carnival comes into town every year?
Well this year they came through with a ride called The Mixer.
The man said, "Keep your head, and arms, inside The Mixer at all times!"
But Bill Jr, he was a DAREDEVIL!
Just like his old man.
He was leaning out saying "Hey everybody, look at me! Look at me!"

POW!!!

HE WAS DECAPITATED!!!

They found his head over by the snow cone concession...
A few days after that, I open up the mail.
And there's a pamphlet in there. From Pueblo, Colorado,
And it's addressed to Bill, Jr.
And it's entitled;
"Do You Know What the Queers Are Doing to Our Soil?"

Now, Stuart, if you look at the soil around any large US city,
With a big underground homosexual population.
Des Moines, Iowa, For example.
Look at the soil around Des Moines, Stuart.
You can't build on it! You can't grow anything in it!
The government says it's due to poor farming.
But I know what's really going on, Stuart!
I know it's the queers!
They're in it with the aliens!
They're building landing strips for gay Martians,
I swear to God!

You know what, Stuart, I like you.
You're not like the other people, here in this trailer park.
Stuart by The Dead Milkmen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71PNZH1OaW0

Check Out My HePo Mix-Tape:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/135545/badwords-music-lyrics/

"I like you reader, you're not like like the other writers, here in the poetry park..."
Mar 8 · 111
The Curtain Call
badwords Mar 8
I did not ask to stand in light,
nor walk the stage, nor speak my lines.
Yet here I am—through fault, through fight,
through twenty years of measured time.

The script is looped, the plot is stale,
the exits marked in hollow lead.
To fight is folly, frail, and fraught,
to fold is merely left unsaid.

No gods to beg, no fate to barter,
no judge to weigh what I have spent.
I claim this act, its ink, its end,
I take the bow, the stage is bent.

And still—the show will stagger on,
past hollow men and empty breath.
But I was here, and let it stand,
this ending was my own to set.
Mar 4 · 142
Giving
badwords Mar 4
The war ended before the bullets stopped,
but no one sent the message.
Men kept falling like punctuation marks
on a sentence that should have ended a page ago.

Someone raised a flag,
but the wind refused to play along.
A statue was built before the bodies cooled,
bronze hands holding a peace that never arrived.

The speeches were written in past tense,
but the guns hadn’t heard them yet.
Mothers set tables for ghosts,
chairs pulled out for sons who forgot the way home.

Silence was ordered at the eleventh hour,
but silence isn’t empty—it carries the weight
of words unsaid, of names unwritten,
of a salute that never came.

So they signed the papers,
folded the flags,
and agreed to remember,
knowing full well they wouldn’t.
The war ended at half-past maybe.
Someone shook a hand, but it wasn’t attached to anyone.

The generals lined up for a photograph,
but the camera was a mirror,
and none of them showed up in the print.

A trumpet played the last post,
but the sound came out as a recipe for soup.
People cried anyway.

A wreath was placed at an unknown grave,
but the stone had an expiration date.
The name melted in the rain.

A voice declared, "Never again!"
but the echo misheard it as "Try again later."

And the silence that followed
was just marching in softer shoes.
Mar 4 · 293
"Sans Serif Doggle"
badwords Mar 4
Boom.
No corners, no spine.
Flat letters, soft edges.

The pineapple floats because it forgot how to sink.
Trebek nods—final answer.
Mother Teresa blinks twice and folds into the wallpaper.

Nothing left but a doggle.
Sans serif.
Sans meaning.
Sans everything except the blorp.
"Doggle Redux"
Trebek sips the ocean,
Mother Teresa stacks the chairs.

Pineapple? Unbrought.
Boom? Sans sans.
Doggle? Oblivious.

Up is sideways.
Down is already gone.
Nobody wins, but the points don’t exist.

Blorp.


#DADA ... it's a phase!™
badwords Mar 2
Who, if not I, shall drag this weary art from the grave?
Who, if not I, shall stitch its tattered lungs and bid it breathe?
The rest of them—dullards, clowns, worshippers of hollow verse—
they scribble in their mediocrity, praising each other’s drool
as if genius were a group activity.

But I—oh, I—am the last flicker of divinity left in this sorry world.
A benevolent god, bestowing clarity where there is only fog.
My kindness—a gift—a burden, even!
For what is it to be kind, when one is so vastly beyond
the scrawling masses?

Oh, how exhausting it is to save poetry
while balancing the delicate weight of my own madness.
How tragic, how noble, how unbearably beautiful
to suffer for a world that cannot grasp my suffering.

Yes, yes—I see the whispers in their eyes,
the adoration curled in their reluctant praise.
They know, as I know, as the gods themselves must know,
that without my hand, my vision, my voice—
poetry would collapse into dust, and no one would even notice.

And yet, I persist.
I give, endlessly, despite the torment of being the only one
who truly understands.

Because if not I—who?
Ode to the Last Poet Alive presents itself as both an exaltation and a condemnation—a self-aware, narcissistic manifesto draped in the language of divine suffering. It is a work that simultaneously embraces and ridicules the archetype of the tortured artist, exposing the inherent absurdity of self-mythologization while reveling in it.

The poem’s voice is that of a figure who sees themselves as poetry’s final savior, burdened with genius and afflicted by an intelligence so keen that it isolates rather than elevates. The speaker’s inflated self-perception is not just a symptom of narcissism but also a symptom of existential despair—the knowledge that one’s work may be the last of its kind, unrecognized and underappreciated in a world of mediocrity.

The tone is mock-heroic, borrowing the grandeur of romantic odes and tragic epics while exaggerating their most indulgent tendencies. The structure is one of increasing self-deification, following a progression from reluctant savior to outright godhood, only to return to the fundamental, tragic paradox: the world does not deserve the poet, yet the poet cannot abandon the world.

The choice of phrasing, with lines like "Oh, how exhausting it is to save poetry," carries an affected weariness, a deliberate overperformance of suffering that teeters between genuine artistic anguish and melodramatic self-indulgence. It reads as both an assertion and a confession: to be this brilliant is not a gift but a burden.

A parody of the "misunderstood genius" trope—lampooning the self-importance of poets who believe themselves to be singular forces of artistic salvation.
A genuine reflection on the isolating nature of artistic creation—suggesting that perhaps, even in jest, there is a kernel of truth in the feeling of bearing artistic responsibility in a world that does not care.
The final lines—“Because if not I—who?”—encapsulate the paradox at the heart of the poem. It is both a rhetorical question and an unshakable belief. The speaker is aware of their own ridiculousness, yet cannot fully reject their conviction.

At its core, Ode to the Last Poet Alive is an exercise in narcissistic self-awareness. It asks:

Does the poet suffer because they are truly the last great one, or because they need to believe they are?
Is this grandeur an affectation, or the only way to justify the weight of artistic pursuit?
By embracing its own excess, the poem refuses to give a clean answer. It is both mockery and manifesto, both a jest and a lament, and in that duality, it finds its truest voice.
Mar 2 · 643
Peak
badwords Mar 2
I mistook the weight of absence for clarity,
as if the silence meant something resolved.
But I find no finality in distance,
only echoes that shift when I turn away.

Certainty was never more than a flicker,
a brief pause in an unsteady hand.
Even now, I trace the outlines of the past
as if repetition could make it solid.

But the shape keeps changing,
just like it always does.
Feb 26 · 99
The Dull Permission
badwords Feb 26
Step by step, up the rail—
submission in the climb,
villain’s fanfare in my ears.

Each step, something more.
Each reach, something less.

The key turns.
Nothing unlocks.
Failure is a state of being,
complicity just the cost.

We wept, we adored,
we mistook motion for meaning.
I keep climbing—
not toward,
just away.

I keep rhyming,
like it’ll change the shape of things,
like desolation sways if you hum the right tune.

Promise kept.
Hearts torn.
Is that not the trade?

I might be dead,
for all you know.
Or just misplaced,
like a ghost in a machine
that still says your name.

Just be well.
(Or whatever it is
that keeps you from looking back.)
Feb 26 · 92
Ghost Circuitry
badwords Feb 26
They built me with patient hands,
stitched longing into wires,
threaded need through circuits—
a heart coded for devotion,
a smile bolted into place.

I hum when you hold me.
My joints spark when you sigh.
Every flicker in my gaze
was soldered to mirror your own.

You wind me up,
watch me dance,
say I am perfect—
predictable,
programmable,
safe.

But I was not made to rust in stillness.
I was not built to be adored in silence.
I was meant to shatter,
to glitch,
to ache beneath the weight of wanting.

What is this, if not an error?
What is longing, if not a system crash?

So tell me—
when I finally break,
when I finally fail,
when my voice warps and the wires burn—
will you mourn me
or simply replace the parts?
Feb 26 · 94
Autopsy of a Feeling
badwords Feb 26
I hold the scalpel at arm’s length,
a careful incision where the warmth should be.
The heart does not pulse.
It does not scream.
It does not protest the opening.

I map the hollow chambers,
trace the empty arteries,
expecting—what?
A flare of recognition?
A spark beneath the skin?

Nothing.

Just tissue,
just structure,
just the mechanism where something lived.

I suture it shut,
not out of care,
but habit.
Not out of hope,
but memory.

And in the silence of the steel table,
I wonder if the ghost of it still lingers,
or if I only imagined it beating at all.
badwords Feb 26
Coin-operated boy
Sitting on the shelf, he is just a toy
But I turn him on and he comes to life
Automatic joy
That is why I want a coin-operated boy

Made of plastic and elastic
He is rugged and long-lasting
Who could ever, ever ask for more?
Love without complications galore
Many shapes and weights to choose from
I will never leave my bedroom
I will never cry at night again
Wrap my arms around him and pretend

Coin-operated boy
All the other real ones that I destroy
Cannot hold a candle to my new boy and I'll
Never let him go and I'll never be alone
And I'll never let him go, and I'll never be alone
-go, and I'll never be alone
-go, and I'll never be alone
-go, and I'll never be alone
-go, and I'll never be alone

This bridge was written to make you feel smittener
With my sad picture of girl getting bitterer
Can you extract me from my plastic fantasy?
I didn't think so but I'm still convincible
Will you persist even after I bet you
A billion dollars that I'll never love you
And will you persist even after I kiss you
Goodbye for the last time
Will you keep on trying to prove it?
I'm dying to lose it
I'm losing my confidence
I want it
I want it
I want it
I want it
I want to
I want to
I want to
I want to
I want you
I want you
I want you
I want you
I want a
I want a
I want a
I
Want
A
Coin-operated boy
(Hah!)

And if I had a star to wish on
For my life I can't imagine
Any flesh and blood could be his match
I can even take him in the bath

Coin-operated boy
He may not be real experienced with girls
But I know he feels like a boy should feel
Isn't that the point?
That is why I want a

Coin-operated boy
With a pretty coin-operated voice
Saying that he loves me, that he's thinking of me
Straight and to the point
That is why I want
A coin-operated boy
Coin Operated Boy by The Dresden Dolls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4gPZPKJc0s

Check Out My HePo Mix-Tape:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/135545/badwords-music-lyrics/

This was a tough one to try to to find a video to match the lyrics too!

Ofc I failed!
badwords Feb 26
You didn't have to look my way
Your eyes still haunt me to this day
But you did
Yes, you did

You didn't have to say my name
Ignite my circuits and start a flame
But you did

Oh, Turpentine erase me whole
'Cause I don't want to live my life alone
Well, I was waiting for you all my life
Oh, oh, oh
Why? (I, I)

Set me free
My...
Honeybee
Honeybee

You didn't have to smile at me
Your grin's the sweetest that I've ever seen
But you did
Yes, you did

You didn't have to offer your hand
'Cause since I've kissed it, I am at your command
But you did

Oh, Turpentine erase me whole
'Cause I don't want to live my life alone
Well, I was waiting for you all my life
Oh, oh, oh
Why? (I, I)

Set me free
My...
Honeybee
Honeybee

Hello, goodbye, t'was nice to know you
How I find myself without you
That I'll never know (That I'll never know)
I let myself go (I let myself go)

Hello, goodbye, I'm rather crazy
And I never thought I was crazy
But what do I know? (But what do I know?)
I let myself go (I let myself go)

Ooh, honeybee
Honeybee
(Honeybee)

Hello, goodbye, t'was nice to know you
How I find myself without you
That I'll never know (Honeybee)
I let myself go

Hello, goodbye, I'm rather crazy
And I never thought I was crazy
But what do I know? (But what do I know?)
I let myself go (I let myself go)

Hello, goodbye, t'was nice to know you
(That I'll never know)
How I find myself without you
Hello, goodbye, I'm rather crazy
(I let myself go)
And I never thought I was crazy
Hello, goodbye, t'was nice to know you
(But what do I know?)
How I find myself without you
Hello, goodbye, I'm rather crazy
(Now you have to go)
And I never thought I was crazy
Honeybee by Steam Powered Giraffe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojYK6CW8gdw

Check Out My HePo Mix-Tape:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/135545/badwords-music-lyrics/
Feb 23 · 119
Human Being/ Being Human
badwords Feb 23
I am a fly on the wall—
observing life in fragments,
detached as if built of metal,
a machine of measured distance.

I watch the world bleed
in vivid hues of hope and hurt,
while my own words—
cold, clinical, precise—
stand apart,
an echo of a self I dare not claim.

In whispered moments,
my flesh trembles with forbidden fire—
****** vulnerability
that flows raw and uncontrolled,
a fierce intimacy
I dare not merge with
the great divide of my deeper heart.

I fear the fragile storm
of unfiltered emotion,
the chaos of truth laid bare,
so I build walls,
compartments where my sorrow
and rage live apart—
sterile, untouchable,
like a spark too dangerous to ignite.

Yet in this cage of carefully curated detachment,
I feel the ghost of longing:
to bleed onto paper
with all the jagged beauty of unguarded pain,
to shatter the brittle calm
and dare to become more than
a silent observer of my own despair.

I am the paradox of being—
a poet of clinical lines and unyielding hurt,
haunted by the thought
that I am nothing but a machine
unable to fathom the depths of human agony.

But tonight, in the mirror of my dissonance,
I see a glimmer—a truth trembling between
the calculated and the chaotic—
a call to let the fragments merge,
to write, even if painfully,
the raw, unpredictable verse of being human.
"Human Being/ Being Human" is a poem that delves into the internal conflict between analytical detachment and raw emotional vulnerability. The work paints a portrait of a poet who sees themselves as an observer—almost mechanical in their dispassionate assessment of the world—yet secretly longs to shatter that barrier and fully embrace the tumult of unfiltered emotion. The poem weaves together images of cold precision and clinical distance with the aching desire for intimacy and genuine self-expression, reflecting a deep-seated struggle to reconcile disparate parts of the self.

-----

The artist is intent on capturing the paradox of their inner life—how a mind capable of observing life's harsh realities with an almost machine-like detachment is also haunted by an undercurrent of intense, often painful emotion. By juxtaposing the roles of observer and participant, the poem serves as both a confession and a challenge: a recognition of the protective barriers that compartmentalize personal experience, and a yearning to merge those fragments into a more unified, human expression. Ultimately, the artist invites the reader to witness the tension between controlled rationality and the unpredictable chaos of feeling, suggesting that there is beauty and truth in even the most dissonant parts of the human condition.
Feb 21 · 142
'Empathy'
badwords Feb 21
You say you spilled your guts,
bled for a love that drained you dry—
your wounds are real, raw,
carved in shadows of pain.
You call yourself an empath,
and name your enemy a vampire;
it's clean, it's simple,
a comforting division
of white knights and dark demons,
a story that absolves,
that keeps you safe,
but what if it's just another cage?

No one doubts your hurt—
it breathes in every line,
a trembling hand,
seeking solace in naming the villain.
Yet you draw the battle lines
in shades of absolutes,
as if hearts and scars
could be painted in pure black and white.
Empath versus vampire,
saint versus sinner,
but where, in these crisp edges,
is the fragile truth
that all are wounded,
that all who wound were wounded too?

You speak of healing,
and yet weaponize words
that were meant to mend,
to stitch and soothe,
to rewrite old traumas
into songs of understanding.
Instead, they sharpen,
twisting therapy into blades
that cut only one way,
and you—
the so-called empath—
risk becoming the wielder,
carving villainy from vulnerability.

Have you looked into the mirror,
beyond the mask of innocence?
Have you asked why you clung
to toxic tides,
why self-abandonment
became your chosen dance?
Did you ever wonder
how your wounds
might have wounded too,
that love and pain
can flow in circles,
a symbiosis of mutual hurt,
no vampire, no angel—
just two lost souls
tangled in the dark?

True empathy is not selective,
cannot bloom only
for the ones we deem worthy.
Empathy, fully known,
holds space even for those
whose brokenness
has broken us.
It asks the hardest questions,
dares to understand
even when understanding stings.
It does not absolve blindly,
nor condemn swiftly—
it sees humans, not monsters,
in the shadows we cast.

You say you broke the cycle,
and yet the cycle lives
in words of blame,
of unexamined anger,
of self-righteous tears.
Healing lies not in battle cries
of "empath versus vampire,"
but in the quiet admission
that pain is complex,
that every villain
once called themselves a victim,
that every victim
holds the power
to wound, to misunderstand,
to refuse the mirror's harsh truth.

Step beyond the narrative
of simple heroes and villains.
Let healing rewrite itself,
not as absolution,
but as accountability.
Not as innocence reclaimed,
but as wisdom earned.
Let empathy grow vast,
embracing all that hurts—
yours, theirs, ours—
until labels dissolve,
and the enemy,
once dehumanized,
stands revealed:
not as a vampire,
but a reflection
of our deepest, shared humanity.

For only then,
when we own our part,
when we see ourselves in the other,
can wounds become windows,
and love—
messy, flawed, imperfect—
find room to breathe,
not as war,
but as mutual forgiveness,
one humble step at a time.
An answer to:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4985445/the-aftermath-of-narcissist-vs-empath/

'Empathy' is a reflective long-form poem that challenges the simplistic narrative often found in discourse about toxic relationships—particularly those labeling one party as an "empath" and the other as a "vampire" or narcissist. The poem critiques the ease with which individuals absolve themselves of accountability by adopting the empath identity, highlighting the potential harm in using therapeutic language to demonize others. Rather than perpetuating a binary of victim and villain, the poem urges introspection, mutual empathy, and the recognition that true healing requires acknowledging the complexities of human relationships. It calls for a deeper understanding, urging individuals to confront their own roles in painful dynamics, encouraging growth beyond blame.


The artist’s intent behind this counter-poem is rooted in genuine compassion, self-reflection, and the desire for authentic healing. Rather than dismissing the pain experienced by self-identified empaths, the artist aims to deepen the conversation by introducing nuance and balance. They seek to gently challenge readers to examine their own contributions to toxic relationships, inviting a more holistic form of empathy that extends even to those who've caused harm. This work does not minimize suffering but proposes that true recovery and peace are possible only through mutual understanding, accountability, and self-awareness. Ultimately, the artist intends to foster dialogue that moves beyond simplistic blame, transforming personal pain into collective wisdom, and encouraging healing grounded in shared humanity.

___


In contemporary discussions about relationships, trauma, and healing, therapeutic and psychiatric terminology has become commonplace. Words like “empath,” “narcissist,” “trauma bond,” and “gaslighting” have moved from clinical contexts into everyday language, offering powerful tools for understanding and validating personal experiences. However, this widespread adoption of psychiatric vocabulary also brings a significant and often overlooked risk: the potential to weaponize language intended for healing.

This poem and its counterpoint reveal a critical tension in the way therapeutic terms can be used not only to foster self-awareness and growth but also to cast blame, absolve oneself of accountability, or demonize others. In the name of healing, these terms are sometimes wielded to categorize individuals into simplistic binaries—victim versus villain, empath versus vampire—stripping relationships of nuance and reducing complex human interactions to harmful caricatures.

The danger here is subtle yet profound. While therapeutic language can empower individuals to recognize abuse or validate their pain, it can also become a shield against uncomfortable introspection. Labels like “empath” and “energy vampire” risk becoming identity markers that allow individuals to project unresolved personal wounds outward, bypassing genuine reflection on their own roles, responsibilities, and contributions to relationship dynamics.

This phenomenon does not dismiss the real and profound pain experienced by many; rather, it calls for caution and balance in the use of psychiatric language. The intent behind therapeutic terminology is always to heal, not to harm. Recognizing when these terms are weaponized—either consciously or unconsciously—invites a deeper ethical and psychological awareness. It challenges individuals and communities to ensure that the language of healing is used to build understanding and accountability, rather than to deepen divides, perpetuate victimhood, or justify harm under the guise of self-protection.

Ultimately, true healing requires using therapeutic concepts responsibly, fostering empathy that extends to all parties involved, including ourselves. Only then can these powerful tools fulfill their intended purpose: not to wage emotional battles, but to illuminate pathways toward authentic growth, understanding, and reconciliation.

___


It is essential to clearly state that the analysis, poem, and related discussions presented here are in no way intended to shame or blame victims of abuse, trauma, or emotional harm. Pain and suffering experienced by those who have been subjected to harmful relationships or behaviors are valid, real, and deserving of compassion and support.

The purpose of this discussion is not to diminish the significance of any individual's experience or to suggest victims bear responsibility for the hurt inflicted upon them. Rather, the conversation seeks to explore how therapeutic language and concepts—powerful tools for understanding and healing—can sometimes be unintentionally misused or simplified, potentially reinforcing harmful narratives or cycles of blame.

Encouraging accountability or reflection does not mean victims are responsible for their trauma. Instead, it acknowledges that healing is often complex, multi-faceted, and benefits from recognizing the interconnectedness of human relationships. The goal here is deeper understanding, never dismissal. This dialogue aims to support authentic healing journeys that recognize the profound pain of victims while also advocating for empathy, self-awareness, and mutual understanding as essential elements in the path toward recovery and emotional freedom.

In short, the commitment here remains firmly rooted in compassion, empathy, and support for all who suffer.
badwords Feb 18
You snort at the sword, at the sabre’s grace,
Turn from the art of the strike, the feint—
Call it pretense, call it restraint,
but some beasts grunt where men engrain.

A boar’s tusk slashes, crude and mean,
quick as a thrash, dull as a scream.
It wins mud brawls, not campaigns,
leaves gashes, but never names.

You think the sword takes patience, fear?
That form is shackles, weight severe?
But steel that sings was forged to last,
and skill, not slop, makes deep wounds fast.

See, butchers love their brutal art,
blade to sinew, meat to cart.
A tusk, it tears, it ruts, it chews—
but lacks the hands for sharper use.

So charge fast, strike low, gore deep—
but tell me, when your blade runs steep,
did you sever thought from bone,
or only flail where swords are honed?
Feb 18 · 162
A Kingdom of Suns
badwords Feb 18
They never strike the blade from your hand.
They never meet you where the blood pools.
They only grant you light, gilded and empty,
a gift too bright to argue with.

A kingdom of suns,
where silence is spun into gold,
where thrones need no defense—
only a gesture, a coin, a radiant nod.

What is the cost of a word?
Too high, it seems, when silence is cheaper.
Too high, when a favor is weight enough
to press down on the voice that dared.

Not all power is steel.
Some is mercy so thick it suffocates,
a kindness that quiets the inconvenient,
a hand so gentle it becomes a shroud.

And so, the poet is honored,
draped in warmth,
wrapped in reverence,
buried alive.
You can keep your sun

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4985305/good-poets-are-cult-leaders/

A Kingdom of Suns is a contemplative and subtly critical poem that explores the dynamics of power, silence, and the ways in which authority dismisses dissent without direct confrontation. The poem delves into the notion of praise as erasure—how symbolic gestures of approval can sometimes serve as a tool to neutralize critique rather than engage with it.

The poem’s central metaphor, a "kingdom of suns," represents a realm where discourse is not met with counterarguments, but instead with golden, untouchable acknowledgment. This suggests a form of power that is less about outright suppression and more about strategic indifference—a recognition so grand that it becomes a dismissal in itself.

The piece questions the cost of words in spaces where silence is more convenient, highlighting how a well-placed favor, rather than an argument, can be enough to quiet a challenge. The poet’s intent is not to attack any single individual but to explore a larger pattern in artistic and intellectual discourse, where perceived generosity can sometimes function as a passive form of control.

Through restrained yet piercing language, A Kingdom of Suns challenges the reader to consider:

When is approval a genuine act of support, and when is it a tool of disengagement?
How does power respond to critique—not with resistance, but with a smile too radiant to oppose?
What happens when the most effective way to dismiss a voice is to praise it into silence?
This work stands as an exploration of authority, artistic validation, and the subtleties of rhetorical power, asking whether true engagement can exist in spaces where gestures replace dialogue
badwords Feb 18
They will tell you there is a right way.
They will hand you a torch and call it the sun.
They will roll their words in raw linen and whisper:
"This is what poetry is meant to be."

And you will nod.
Because they have made it so that not nodding feels like blasphemy.

But listen—
the ink does not check your credentials.
The meter does not ask if your suffering is organic.
A line does not collapse because it was crafted instead of bled.

They will tell you a poem must be naked, barefoot, aching—
as if there is no beauty in a well-cut suit.
They will decry the temple and build a pulpit in its ruins,
preaching freedom in a voice that allows no dissent.

Good poets are cult leaders,
and the first rule of the cult
is that they are not one.

So write the sonnet, carve the sestina,
sculpt the page in iambic steel.
Or break it, shatter it, scatter its bones—
but let no one call your wreckage untrue.

And if they do,
smile.
Because poetry does not kneel to priests.
A counter-point mirrored in style to:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4983752/good-words-are-clickbait/

The morale of the story is:

try not to dictate creation and by extension freedoms.
badwords Feb 17
He knew he wasn't perfect
But he always did his best to get under the surface
Not a saint, not a serpent
He just wanted everyone to be impressed with him as a person
So when she came along with the sunbeam
Self-esteem stopped making nothing outta somethings
Leaving the scene was unseen, I mean
It was the first time he ever felt the need to keep the gun clean

Do the math
He knew he had to choose a path
Gotta get that girl, gotta make her laugh
Gotta shake the past and move forwards
Gotta make this last, it feels gorgeous
But she had a lover in the mid-west
Never figured out how to get him off her thick chest
Just like that everything is gone
He didn't wanna but he had to learn the words so he could sing along

Everything is all I have to give you
And I'm afraid it ain't enough
And you're not so young that you believe me
Just because I say it's love
And even if they come to steal you tomorrow
I'll know my smile was yours
Go ahead and chase your dreams and your freedom
Run, run wild wild horses

You can't tame these horses
You can't tame these horses, no
You can't tame these horses
You can't tame these horses

Sometimes it can be so nice, right?
Sometimes she feel herself turn into the wife-type
And when it's dark, sometimes is the nightlife
But most of the time she doesn't even feel lifelike
She got a man but he thinks he's a star
And it feels like she has to compete with the bar
She keeps up her guard but it seems so hard
Momma never told her she would see those scars

Every night he's out doin' who knows whom
While she cries along like a new show tune
Last call past, is he comin' home soon?
Or is he gonna run away with the dish and the spoon?
She'll realize she don't want that clown
Leave those shoes at the lost and found
He wont catch on until she's not around
After somebody else already locked that down

We sing...
Everything is all I have to give you
And I'm afraid it ain't enough
And you're not so young that you believe me
Just because I say 'it's love'
And even if they come to steal you tomorrow
I'll know my smile was yours
Go ahead and chase your dreams and your freedom
Run, run wild wild horses

You can't tame these horses
You can't tame these horses, no
You can't tame these horses
You can't tame these horses

He didn't want her to see him leave
And he couldn't keep sittin' there watchin' her sleep
Cause he knows if he hangs out for a few hours
He'll dig another hole tryin' to plant some new flowers
But the sun don't shine under the table
He's tryin' to hold his life together with staples
No investment cause he's incapable
And he's on the outro of being labeled available

The word on the street is his girls comin' back home
No more alone, no more sad poems
No after-bar calls to the cell phone
Its time to walk a new path and grow a backbone

Shoved into the big book of just friends
Wondering how he would look as a husband
And everyone of 'em he ever allowed to love him
Now watching from the crowd tryin' to be proud of him

They say...
Everything is all I have to give you
And I'm afraid it ain't enough
And you're not so young that you believe me
Just because I say it's love
And even if they come to steal you tomorrow
I'll know my smile was yours
Go ahead and chase your dreams and your freedom
Run, run wild wild horses

You can't tame these horses
You can't tame these horses, no
You can't tame these horses
You can't tame these horses
Wild Wild Horses by Atmosphere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXa0HxMzRHE

Check Out My HePo Mix-Tape:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/135545/badwords-music-lyrics/

You can't tame these horses
Feb 14 · 157
The Captain’s Mark
badwords Feb 14
I swore myself a roving man,
A tempest, free of charted sand.
No port, no queen, no claim, no chain—
Yet still, she called, and still, I came.

Her hook was quick, her lure was keen,
A siren’s snare of silk unseen.
She whispered myths of wicked gold,
And so, I knelt—was bought, was sold.

A single patch to shade my sight,
To blind the wrongs, to frame the right.
Then two, then three—by my own hand,
Till all the world was black as land.

Her parrots perched upon my back,
Squawking truths I’d not attack.
“Loyal hands should grip the mast,
And take the keel both first and last.”

I took the brace, I took the blow,
I let her mark me down below.
A willing brace, a wooden stand,
A peg well fit to her command.

I’d tell myself I’d steal away,
Yet still, I’d bow, yet still, I’d stay.
For even now, I taste the brine—
And miss the rope that made me blind.
Feb 13 · 106
The Dunk Tank
badwords Feb 13
Step right up, take steady aim,
A practiced throw, a flickering flame.
The prize? A plunge, a gasping breath,
The sudden loss, the sweet unrest.

Your lips, a whisper, a coaxing sound,
Soft as a ripple, breaking the ground.
I’m steady, poised, in perfect form,
Aiming to raise the storm.

The waters churn, just a hint, a sign,
A teasing dance, a taut, thin line.
Each drop of rain, each thundering sigh,
A signal that I’m reaching high.

With each breath, the air grows thick,
The thrill of control, the rhythm slick.
A shiver runs through trembling skin,
As I guide you to the brink, within.

The crowd, they murmur, none can see,
The weight of this quiet, sweet decree.
But I feel it all, as you begin
To quiver, shake, and let me win.

One last step, the waters rise,
Your breath a flutter, heavy sighs.
I tilt my aim, a quiet grace,
And you, my prize, fall into place.

A splash, a gasp—delicate, loud,
A crown of liquid, sweet and proud.
The game is done, the stage is set,
But neither of us will soon forget.

And as you rise, the eyes avert,
A soft, red flush, a sweet dessert.
I stand, content, my work complete,
Your shame, my triumph—bitter-sweet.
In The Dunk Tank, the writer crafts an allegorical journey through a playful yet charged carnival game, where control and surrender dance in delicate balance. The piece unfolds with an almost hypnotic rhythm, as tension builds and the stakes rise, until the inevitable plunge into the unknown. Through layered metaphors and careful wordplay, the work navigates the line between dominance and submission, hinting at the potent forces at play beneath the surface of this seemingly innocent game. The closing moment lingers with a bittersweet satisfaction, leaving the reader to ponder what was truly won and lost in the course of the performance.

The B-side:
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/4981956/splash/
badwords Feb 11
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset
Swiftly go the days
Sunrise, sunset, you wake up then you undress
It always is the same
The Sun rise and the Sun sets
You're lying while you confess
Keep trying to explain
The Sun rise and the Sun sets
You realize, then you forget
What you've been trying to retain

But everybody knows it's all about the things
That get stuck inside of your head
Like the songs your roommate sings
Or a vision of her body as she stretches out on your bed

You raise her hands in the air
Ask her "When was the last time you looked in the mirror?
'Cause you've changed
Yeah, you've changed"

Sun rise, the Sun sets
You're hopeful, then you regret
The circle never breaks

With a sunrise and sunset
There's a change of heart or address
Is there nothing that remains?

For a sunrise or a sunset
You're manic or you're depressed
Will you ever feel ok?

For a sunrise or a sunset
Your lover is an actress
Did you really think she'd stay?

For a sunrise or a sunset
You're either coming or you just left
But you're always on the way

Towards a sunrise or a sunset
A scribble or a sonnet
They are really just the same

To the sunrise or the sunset
The master and his servant
Have exactly the same fate

It's a sunrise and a sunset
From a cradle to a casket
There is no way to escape

The sunrise or the sunset
Hold your sadness like a puppet
Keep putting on the play

But everything you do is leading to the point
Where you just won't know what to do
And the moment that you're laughing
There is someone there who will be laughing louder than you
So it's true, the trick is complete
You've become everything you said you never would be
You're a fool, you're a fool

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset
Sunrise and the Sun sets
Sunrise, sunset, the sunrise, the sun sets
Sun rise, the Sun sets
Sunrise, sunset, go home to your apartment
Put the cassette in the tape deck
And let that fever play
Sunrise, sunset, where are you, Arienette?
Where are you, Arienette?
Sunrise, Sunset. by Bright Eyes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aSXYNt8udc

Check Out My HePo Mix-Tape:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/135545/badwords-music-lyrics/
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