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Daniel Mashburn Mar 2017
It's the things you love and the things that you learn to hate. It's the feeling of despair and indescribable rage. It's the things you try to hide but you always seem to find

That the human aspects of life are fickle and flame. There's a communal need to pass on (not shoulder) the blame. When you stand back and look away, can you handle all the shame

Of the things you know you should have done but you chose to neglect? And you say you're doing fine but you're an emotional wreck. The things you try to hide cast shadows in your eyes.

It's the things you thought you knew and the things you try to forget. Is it a life well lived if it's a life filled with regret? If it's a shocking turn of events, will you trudge on through the end

Of the story to see how it all will surely unfold? Isn't there a strange sort of beauty in the perils of telling truths untold? When the questions that you have are the ones you'll never ask

On a search to self proclaimed enlightened truth and you seem to think you wasted time on this ill fitting youth. The things you try to hide turn my stomach and make me cry.

It's the things you did and the things that I know you regret.
Daniel Mashburn Jan 2017
She's a beautiful disaster with scars on her wrists and she said, "I'm glad I'm not dead, cause this'd be a ***** to have to talk about. I couldn't do that to my family and friends

So let's not talk about it. "I'm fine."
So let's not talk about it. "I'm doing fine."

And I know you never listen.
And I know you never care.
And I know you don't believe in love.
And probably never will.

She said, "I've been feeling like I'm losing grip on what I know. Between the distances I've gone and all those places left to go. And I was hoping maybe this time I could head up north, leave that awful past behind me.

And when the sinews break and the heart sinks to the stomach, I feel a retching in the back of my throat.

I told myself it didn't matter.
I wouldn't feel it anymore.
That I wouldn't look back at the bridges that I've torched.
Things always seem to work out for the worse."
Daniel Mashburn Jan 2017
I dug my nails into the dirt so I could tear the continents adrift to rid myself of the petty distances between us.

I kept pulling at the seams until the mountains started crumbling. Sweat drip, drip, dripping from my brow, but I'm still prying at the pieces.

Until at last I raised the oceans. High tide and high time, I pulled myself from the ocean floor.

If I let go, I would disappear.
There would be nothing left to keep me here.

I built castles made of sand and built them strong upon the shore. I laced in my fear of the ocean and of waters running cold

into the foundation and these walls; of these places I'd call my home, but can I really call it home when I'm feeling all alone?

Until at last I raised the oceans. High tide and high time, I pulled myself from the ocean floor.

If I let go, I would disappear.
There would be nothing left to keep me here.

We spit rhetoric in rhyme.
Who will save us this time?
There's nothing left to say;
I like it better this way.
Daniel Mashburn Dec 2016
I've paced around in empty parking lots with myself and a guitar. And I spent almost 9 years thinking about you. And now you're gone.

And everybody says the same thing. They say they think I've lost my mind. And I was counting stars on the overpass, baby. But I was just wasting time.

She said, "Boy, you almost had it. But you were just too blind to see." She said, "Right when I wanted you was when you gave up on wanting me."

She told me I wrote too many uncomfortable poems. Said I was too busy being alone. She asked me why I never seemed to notice how she sang along to every unhappy song.

Her eyes gazed off in to nothing and I knew I should have said something but I didn't say anything at all.

It was all private screaming but was masked as day dreaming but she left and she didn't say a word.
Daniel Mashburn Dec 2016
I've spent years of barely living. I've spent summers full of fear. When I had the chance to tell you that I loved you I knew I should have brought you here, to this over pass I used to sing at though I hadn't been in years, but instead I let you leave with out a goodbye. I watched you disappear.

I used to watch you in the moonlight out of the corner of my eye. I would listen to you breathing as you looked up at the sky. And I know you were counting stars and trying to figure why I could be so painfully reserved as the silence passed us by.

I started having dreams about having finally got it right. I gave you all the letters I wrote you every single night. I told you the things that really matter and I said it all outright. But instead I'd say it with a stammer and follow with a sigh.

You would say I never listen but I don't think you think that's true. The timbre of your voice is soothing; I could spend each night listening to you. I had to give up on the things I wanted and what I wanted most desperately was the chance to follow through with the scenarios in my dreams, but I fear there's nothing left that I can do.
Daniel Mashburn Oct 2016
You said you'd like to start again and maybe then you could feel fine and maybe you would be less afraid if this were a different life.

I was hoping you could forgive yourself for all the things you thought of but didn't ever do but you kept wearing away at yourself until there was nothing left of you.

I know that you'd sell your soul to any agent of change if they could give you what you needed most, but instead you waited in vain.

You left here on a north bound plane, never to be heard from again but I like to think you found your peace and a whole new life to begin.
Daniel Mashburn Oct 2016
I'm watching Donnie Darko with the lights on
And I'm thinking about all my old friends
And how I've wasted all these years, but I coped with most of my fears, and you know: things seemed different then.

And if you fall apart, the bottom is a good place to start when you have to pick yourself back up again.
And if you're falling down, when you hit the ground, give it a kiss and realize this: you know, it's not too late to be the end.

And I fell in love with all the things that make me human. I forgave myself and everyone else too. And I stopped looking for the answers. They're still there, but they're different for me and you.

And if someone tells you no one cares, please know that that's not true.
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