In the end we’re all the same
Just wandering around trying to find a comfortable cage
Trading one set of bars for another, hoping the nagging voices in our heads go away
We all just want somewhere warm to stay

We’re all the sum of broken hearts and fresh starts
We’ve all known the peace of living in our sleep
Stitching what it is we believe on our sleeve so we can read it back to ourselves and find the courage to continue to breathe
We’re all taped together by the same dreams

We all check the weather forecast, trying to figure out whether or not this is a storm we can weather
Slapping bumper stickers on our pain like band-aids that read “it gets better”

We’re all the sum of everyone else
Picking and choosing our skins
Like a Frankenstein-created chameleon
We all wish we could just blend in

The bonds of affection never die
But we all hope if we build our white picket fences high enough they’ll stay inside
Avoiding each other trying to figure out why we were even given a sense of touch
We all use our fear as a crutch

We all cast ourselves towards the same sun hoping our shadows won’t show
Looking over our shoulders only to see our skeletons in tow
We all wish there was somewhere else for this regret to go

We all bleed the same fervent fear
Trying desperately to keep the fire inside praying no one will hear
We’re all held together by the same hope that morning is near


In the end we’ve all committed the same crimes
We’ve all divided ourselves by the same imaginary lines
We’ve all believed the same lies
We’ve all been living off the same borrowed time
In the end...we're all going to die

But we all hope we can say we tried.

Intellect without emotion, someone told me once. That's how they described me.  That I had more wit and sarcastic charm than I could ever need, and yet I  couldn't do anything meaningful with it because I lacked anything real…..like empathy, selflessness…or love.  I was the cleverest robot in the world.

The truth is I do have emotion. Bounds of it.  It pours out of me through cracks I forgot to seal when I walled myself in.  And any attempt it makes to grow a garden is flooded by preemptive rain clouds, conjured up by a self imposed reality wherein the world sees my face in the daylight for what it really is and burns down my garden anyway.

I am no robot, I just hide behind cold metal plates and careful calculations, as if I could possibly predict consequences to chances I never take, moves I never make, and broken down walls I never break. So that the outcome is that i'm the loneliest, cleverest robot in the world, who discarded his humanity for a safety net and a bottle of cheap thrills, a bottle he uses as a telescope to see the rest of world because it looks better through the glass.

This conversation dances on our tongues
Like a fire flickering endlessly at the end of a candle
Until it leaps from our mouths into the center of the room
Revealing to us why we could never extinguish it while swaying slowly to a tune

We watch silently as our words move
Gracefully flowing in and out of time and space,
Crescendoing to towering heights then coming back down with the finesse of feather fluttering flawlessly to the song’s pace

And for a moment,
we lose ourselves to the rhythm
allowing each beat to wash over us in waves of
elegant abstracts flowered with beautifully acute details

Where, or even when, we started is lost to us now
Discarded in favor of the wonderful wander

Our words separate,
Then come back together
Like two star crossed lovers eternally entangled in a tango
Crossing old paths with new shoes
While wondering aloud how they ever came to forget the dance’s moves

It’s so natural that we forgot to worry
Blissfully ignorant to the fact our fate is fleeting
So that the only things to exist were you, I, and our verbal exchange
In a perfect marriage of consistency and change

Our words retreat back into our tongues just as the morning light hits,
Jolting us back awake for another routine day
We smile knowing the rest of them could never understand the fierceness of our wits
These words were only ever meant for us anyway

I’m a thief.

A criminal mastermind vying for all the affections of dead poets and living sociopaths

Watching flesh fall off of my fingertips and flutter to the floor.
Sewing on new skin like armor until a foreign face meets my eyes and smiles back

I’m in a perpetual state of identity crisis. I’m here and I’m there and I’ve be down while looking up and vice versa so many times
And so now my sense of direction has long rotted away and I’m left on my hands and knees sorting through the scattered remnants of me

And through it all, the rise and fall of an infinite wave whose name can be cleverly modeled on the back of a pill bottle, I still look down to the faded ink of a long-lost letter
It reads; “I swear I can be better”

And just when I look up to the moon for a cue on the tide’s change,
an anchor pulls me away and prepares my flooded lungs for another sorrow soaked day
So I guess I’ll stay

See, even now, schizophrenia might be preferable because at least then I could give the voices in my head a name and shed some of this blame on someone else

The only thing I really have left is my name

And even that is melting out through cracks in my closed fist because I held it too tightly against my burning heart 
Somewhere inside I always knew it belonged to someone else from the start

But I stole it.

I dig deep
For some hidden hope
To find the strength I've always had
When I was up against the ropes

Because that’s exactly where I’ll be
As I'm running away
To the only dream
That’s kept me mentally sane

I'm finding an escape
From the people around me
And the day to day life
That creates my boundary

I’ll find a place
Where I can hear my own voice
And it won’t be distorted
By the societal noise

I’ll climb each step
Ignoring the blood on my hands
And distance myself
From that which fears what it can’t understand

And now that I'm here
I’ll find what sets me apart
From a white picket fence
And a little green yard

The American dream
Might be a safe aspiration
But what does it become
When it drowns the dreams of its nation?

So I’ll escape into the truth
And leave my chains behind
So they can see what it means
To be truly alive

I’ll sit on a hilltop
And watch the lives they all lead
Working jobs they hate
to buy **** they don’t need

being ordinary
is the addiction they feed
as they smile coldly
and say **** they don’t mean

one morning they’ll wake up
and see the hole in their chest
and realize they made up
all this nonsense

but they’re not bad people
they just never learn
cause on their way to the top
they’d watch the world burn

and instead of trying to extinguish
these self-mutilating fires
they’ll turn their heads
to their frivolous desires

but I’m still searching
for the bigger picture
because maybe if I find it
I can hang it on my refrigerator

So I wont forget
Because I need to remember
As my story settles down
Into the pages of forever

But all I feel
Is my judgment slip away
As black and white
Fade into shades of gray

And all I feel
Is the hypocrisy settle in
As I see myself
Committing the same sins

So I’ll resign to the life
Of a numbing vaccine
And continue trying
to put out my fire with gasoline

I’d positioned myself
Away from it all
But now prepared
For the inevitable fall

My knees start to tremble
My skin feels colder
as the weight of the world
bears down on my shoulders

my front foot slips
and the back one slides
and I fall into the hole
I dug with my pride

and all I see
is the faces I left behind
and suddenly that hope I’m looking for
........
is much harder to find…

Let’s get rid of it all.

Starting with this mouth, lately it hasn’t said anything worth hearing,
Like these lungs haven’t ****** in any air worth breathing
Or these hands haven’t held anything worth keeping
Like these ears haven’t heard anything worth believing
Or this blood hasn’t found it’s way to heart worth beating
And this skin hasn’t resembled anything worth seeing
And this mind hasn't become anyone worth meeting

And when all the worn out masks have slithered away and finally left me beautifully naked and infinitely clean.
Maybe then my soul can find someone worth being.

More often than not, I tend to end before I begin.
Endings are easy.
Once you read the last page of the book, getting there tends to become a lot less interesting.
And so I don't try.

I can still see the bigger picture, it's hanging on my refrigerator.
But the frame's been all worn through
And I just don’t have the same camera lens I used to.

They say happiness is a choice but they also say depression is an illness.
So I guess I’m too sick to choose and that choice is reserved for a happier few.
The kind with bumper stickers and ****.

See, I really am tired of living in fear, but I can’t seem to find anywhere else and I’m told the housing market isn’t doing too well.

And anyway, melancholy is an interesting landlord. Every time I try to move, it lowers the rent down and offers me a complementary glass of the easy way out.

Well maybe one day I’ll finally lay my head down and give my beer-stained soul a chance to sober up
It’s been awhile since its glass was empty,
Instead it’s either always half-full, or half-empty, depending on which day of the week it is.

But I’m no stranger to the good fight,
I’ve just been known to walk the line and cop a feel of the darker side from time to time.
And even though I’ve kicked the habit out of sight
You can still see the scars if the light hits them right.