When you're a centrist
Everyone agrees
Cause everybody thinks you're wrong

When you're a centrist
Everyone agrees
Cause they all say you don't belong

But if you talk to one person at a time
And bring them just a little toward the middle
One step at a time
Before they know it they're on your side

Take your left hand
Reach as far as you can
But don't give up your ground

Take your right hand
Reach out to the right side
Don't let them pull you around

And then connect two hands at a time
Make a chain that snakes its way across the middle
One link at a time
Before they know it they're all entwined

There is so much
Space here in the middle
All of you can stand with me

There is so much
We can do together
Without this dichotomy

It happens one day at a time
Shifting just a little toward the middle
After enough time
There aren't that many sitting on the sides

Why not get up and move around
And mingle just a little in the middle?
One big fabulous party, we'll be
Dancing in the aisle

People love dark
People love light
People love day
People love night

People love Sun
People love Moon
People love sky
People love blue

People love land
People love sea
People love animals
People love peace

People love people
People love things
Small wonder
People sing

People love soul
People love heart
Stars build people
People love stars

People love deep
People love real
People will fall
People will feel

People forgive
People cry
People build things
People fly

People love song  
People love God
Deep wonder
People love

I

Don't remember being a rose
A crown of thorns
A dragon's wing

I don't recall
Being all
These different things

The Universe and I
Were more than together
We were one

I was the Earth
I was the Moon
I was the Sun

One day
All of that undoing
Will be undone

I will be a tree
I will be the sea
I will be a galaxy

I will be
We
We will be

One

The Universe is all one thing
The mind says 'I am this'
and 'I am not that'
But that's not real
It's just an illusion
Just like everything else
In our minds

At the end
I hope that for a moment
I feel what it is like
To be
Unity

Standing on a highwire
Can't even see the ground
Some people try so hard
Not to look down

Some people push others
Out of their way
Not even looking
When they fall away

Some people take
Small careful steps
They never look up
At anyone else

Some sway with the highwire
Dance to the beat
They never even
Look at their feet

This is why you're not good enough
That's something I've heard people say
I used to get angry or cry
Now I just laugh and walk away

Because I know that same mean voice
Has all those same mean things to say
Even when they are all alone
And there is no one else to hate

The things that people say to others
Are what they say to themselves
The things that people criticize
Are what they hate about themselves

So I walk on because I can
Not everybody has that choice
They'll only hurt me once but they
Can't walk away from their own voice

Elon Musk has done so much
What would be different if he hadn't?
Whole new view, choose red or blue,
A whole new world for us to madden

Should he wish upon a star
Fly us to freedom like Aladdin
Write his name across the sky
Too bright to die like Esarhaddon

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind
No wonder it's so hard for us to see
It would be better if we could be kind
At least that is the way it seems to me

Now this is only my opinion
It's perfectly alright to disagree
But I imagine there are millions
Who see the whole world just the same as me

Some people look for thunderstorms
Some people for sunshine
No matter what you're looking for
Seek and ye shall find

Some people look for aliens
Some people look for God
And even through the deepest storm
Lightning finds its rod

The Sun is just another
In an endless sky of stars
If we saw it from far away
Would we know it was ours?

It isn't too remarkable
In any special way
An ordinary little star
That rides the Milky Way

But when seen from our point of view
The Sun is like a god
So wonderful, so full of light
So powerful, so hot

It's bright enough to light the sky
And paint it blue and gold
It shines on us, it grows the plants,
It warms us when we're cold

I think we would love any star
That brought us so much light
But our Sun is the only one
That shines on us this bright

Sometimes the ones who look
Ordinary from far away
Will dazzle you if you will
Just give them the time of day

Many say that God is real and loves you
I wonder how many of them believe this is true
Sometimes when people lose their faith they feel blue
Sometimes I wonder whether I should lie too

Maybe I should help other people believe
After all, they'll never know they were deceived
Will they find out there is no Heaven and grieve?
No! They won't find out anything after they leave.

But what if it turns out I'm the one who's wrong?
That God was just hiding, was real all along?
There might be a Heaven, but I won't belong.
I think different thoughts and I sing different songs.

This question's unanswerable but not small
Would I even answer if I heard the call?
Maybe I should say what I believe about God and whether he's real:
Nothing at all

Magpie
Chattering
Mimicking
Other birds
Steal their
Shiny
Shiny
Words
Fly away home
Weave them in your own
Glittering and complicated
Nest
Until your
Shiny
Shiny
Nest
Covers the whole world
Make everybody learn
Your
Shiny
Shiny
Stolen
Woven
Words

You say: let's move the embassy
It isn't a big deal to me
It translates to a lot of press
I'll show the world that I'm the best

I'll show them I can dominate
One domino, a piece of cake
A bigger slice of the same pie
The kind of wealth that you can't buy

One domino, a little thing
What's that? I wasn't listening
You said that this was complicated
Overthought is overrated

But if you move one domino
You don't know how far it will go
If they are close enough together
Dominoes will fall forever

I honestly feel better now
After I got those words all out
They look so harsh and broken but
I got them all out of my heart

I read them and it makes me sad
But now it feels like empathy
As if someone else wrote those words
And they did not come out of me

One day I'll probably go back
Delete the words I wrote today
For now I am just glad they're out
I think I'm gonna be OK

But now when others read these poems
They will feel sad just like me
I don't know how I feel about
This other side of empathy

It's OK
It's alright
Just calm down
Everything is fine
Alright?
You're alright
You're OK
Just relax
Relax and breathe
OK?
It's OK
It's alright
Just calm down
Everything is fine
It's going to be alright
OK?
I've got you
Alright?
I've got you
You are always safe with me
Just breathe
Just breathe
Alright
Alright

Alright.

Sometimes I can't sleep
I think about our beautiful blue world
In flames
I think about streets full of
Broken glass
Blood spilled over stones and ashes
Distant screams and close explosions
Mortar flashes
Whistling sky crashes
Stones and ashes
Stones and ashes
Stones and ashes
Clattering like jagged broken teeth out of the smoke choked sky
Shell shocked orphans shaking
Silent in the rubble
No one to show them the way home
Neither can I
All I can do is cry
And cry
And cry

I try to make other people feel loved
Because I really do love them
I think that humans are wonderful
But then I turn around and say
I don't deserve love because
I'm broken and messed up
Well so is everyone I've ever met
And I still love them
All the same
So why do I think I don't deserve love?
Even if I didn't deserve it
Would it be so wrong if someone loved me
All the same?

Would you rather feel sadness or rage?
I would rather feel sadness
Because I can express that feeling
Without hurting anybody

Some people would rather feel rage
Because they think sadness makes them weak

What they don't know is
Rage is sadness
Twisted up in the heart
It cannot run out with your tears
And so
It kicks and hits
It punches a wall
Or a face
It tries and tries to find its way out

But the thing is
If you cry for long enough you won't be sad anymore
But rage doesn't run all the way down your fist when you punch
The roots of it are wound up in your heart
And it eats at you to grow strong

When you cry
It shakes your heart
And all the rage comes tumbling out
Running down your face
And when all the tears are done
Your heart is open
And when your heart is open
It grows strong

All the little chemicals
Run into the water
Turning all the fish green
Giving them mutations
Then we eat the fish
Until we turn green too
And all the little chemicals
Cover up the sky

Dear God, I don't know if you're real,
But either way, I pray for peace
In my land, their land, every land
America, the Middle East
They **** each other in your name
I don't know how that makes you feel
I'm kind of angry with you, God
Or I would be if you were real

Oh what, now is this blasphemy?
Then come down and give me a sign.
Spread peace and love throughout the land
And make it 'ours', not 'yours' and 'mine'
Come on, God, please, just bring us peace
I'll hold up my end of the deal
If you just bring us peace on Earth
I'll the whole world that you're real.

Planets are so beautiful
Planets are so spherical
Our planet is so wonderful
A living breathing miracle

From the outside, from a distance
Our world is ultramarine
On the surface there are rainbows
But it's mostly blue and green

Subtle and diaphanous
The clouds adorn our world like lace
And when the clouds have hushed away
You can see straight out into space

Double, double, Keck and Hubble
Gaze forever through the void
Delineate the luminous
The galaxies and planetoids

All together fall forever
Parallax in parallel
While all our stars fall all together
Circling the deepest well

Who lit the stars, who drew the well,
The spiral of our galaxy?
Who gathers us, who made the world,
The Moon, the planets?
Gravity.

You are beautiful
Just the way you are

You do not need
To gild yourself

You are already
Infinitely
Valuable

To see from someone else's point of view
Is very grand and humbling all at once
Enlightened by new things I never knew
And moved by someone else's needs and wants

In my unending quest to understand
I look at myself from afar and see
One green leaf in an ever changing land
One raindrop in an ever moving sea

I feel so beautiful, vulnerable
So small a part of such a subtle scene
So intricate, so great and terrible
A part of such a powerful machine

And as I spin with all the other wheels
I see the world through very different eyes
I have no words to tell you how it feels
To see the world in someone else's sky

I know you think about it
Every day
I wish that I could chase your
Demons away
But who would I be
Enamored of?
Your shadow is
The one I love

The things you try to  
Sublimate
I find very easy
To relate
Your shadow self
Has such a hold
Over your heart
And both our souls

I am so afraid because
Anything could happen
Literally anything
Today, tomorrow, in a thousand years
But this is the same reason why
I feel so much joy and wonder
And hope

I have a lot of questions for myself
And I don't have answers for all of them
Sometimes I think
Maybe I should stop asking
But no
I just HAVE TO ASK QUESTIONS
What is this? What does it mean? How do I know this is real?
What if it isn't?
It drives me absolutely up the wall sometimes
But it's just the way I am
And if I say to myself 'NO MORE QUESTIONS'
Then I deny the truest part of who I am
Because who am I?
I don't know but clearly I'm  
Someone who asks a lot of questions.

These tinted glasses
Are for your protection
Lions and tigers and
Pay no attention!

But once I suspected
And now I am certain
That it's the same man
Behind all of these curtains

The net is twitching
It is full of hearts and pointing thumbs
It is full of stars

I want to fly up into the sky
But first I must let go of the net
O it is difficult

I let go
My net is empty
But I still see the stars
Reflected in the surface of the water
They were never in my net

I look up at the real stars
So much brighter than their reflections
And for the first time
I am free

The net only held me

I see the darkness in you
I see it rising in you
Ever so gently
Ever so slowly

I watch you build
Feverishly fast
Watch you build higher and higher
And still it rises

And on that day
When it rises up inside you
When it rises up so far
That it swallows you whole

On that day I will remember
With the rest of the world
We will look back together
Over miles and miles of neon signs

But not today

Today I watch you
Sleeping beauty
Build your own airplane
Build your own tower

And wonder what will happen when you
Reach the sky

If all of us were only violent,
Only the toughest would survive.
Individual humans would be very strong,
But there would only be a few of us,
So we wouldn't pose much of a threat to the other animals.

If all of us were only peaceful,
There would be a lot of us,
But we would actively try to avoid harming other creatures,
So we wouldn't pose much of a threat to the other animals.

If all of us were only violent,
We wouldn't be able to cooperate
Enough to build weapons of mass destruction,
So we wouldn't pose much of a threat to the other animals.

If all of us were only peaceful,
We wouldn't build weapons of mass destruction,
So we wouldn't pose much of a threat to the other animals.

This duality is a double edged sword.
Like any sword, it brings power only to the one who wields it.

My mind is full of thoughts and sounds and words
It's influenced my mindset a great deal
I can be understood, or at least heard
It's easy to express the things I feel

And this extends to every piece of me
Even the pieces that, given the choice,
I might have rather lived with silently
Than shiver in discovering their voice

Sometimes it's just one track, a monologue
Sometimes a duet, chorus, symphony
I cannot see the raindrops for the fog
I cannot see the forest for the trees

Some other people have tried to give names
To all these whisperers between their ears
If God is the wise voice that keeps us safe
The Devil is the part of us we fear

The id speaks only in short sentences
I want, I need, I love, I feel, I hate
The superego blunt but coherent
Dodecahedra do not tessellate

Sometimes they go off and do their own thing
One solves a math problem, the other dreams
Sometimes I catch them speaking, arguing
One speaks in monotone, the other screams

And I stand in between and keep the peace
The moderator, I, the ego, me
And when I create art I can increase
The interplay which flows ever between

When I combine the various powers
It fosters in me love and harmony
I listen to my roots, leaves, and flowers
But I am only one; I am the tree