What in this world can I understand but me?
Whose pain is this if not mine?
Whose voice is this if not mine?
All I can ever be is my Self
All I can ever truly know is me and mine
I'm trapped in the chains of my own Ego and I know **** well that those chains are ones you can't shake off
Max Stirner you tell me I should only act in my self interest
You tell me that all things are my property if I exert my will over them
But you don't know a **** thing about me Max
How many hells would I create for the people I know if I exerted that will?
You must have had the luxury to not have anger like mine
You must have not ever experienced the fire in the back of your mind and the bricks in the pit of your stomach when life throws you for a loop
You don't know how bitter I can become
Your egoism would be poison in my blood

Max I look into the mirror and wonder if that's you I see
Hiding in my mind behind my irises peering back and laughing
I have such distaste for the things you preach but why am I so fixated on letting the world know that?
And suddenly it's all clear
Max Stirner you are my shadow
You are everything about myself that I cannot accept
You are every clenched fist at the thought of someone I love loving someone else
You are every scowl on my face when I feel like I'm surrounded by people who don't give a **** about what I have to say
You are every night I stewed in my own mind because nothing went how I wanted

I want to be rid of my ego
I want to live a life where I'm never in the way of anyone pursuing what they want
So what do I do now?
Because maybe you aren't entirely wrong Max
I am free when I take responsibility for my actions it's true
Do I want to be a good man because it is in my self interest to do so?
And is love nothing but a ghost of my mind?
A spectre that disappears as soon as I reach my hand out to it
They tell me love is just a bunch of chemicals in my brain anyway
But ****** it's my brain and it's my chemicals
They are mine and so my property

So Max, we'll never agree in our anarchism
At the end of the day I believe in causes and powers bigger than my ego
But I have a respect for your beliefs
Because I know all too well
All I can ever be is me
All I can ever understand is my self

When you ask the right question and get the answer you hoped wouldn't come
When you find the truth and it's what you wished you'd never see
You can feel it in the back of your mind
The tension
That feeling in your head that things aren't what you thought and they probably never were
It's something you gotta sweat out before it clogs up your brain and your heart
All learning is alleviation of tension
All decisions too
You can't run from it and you shouldn't want to
In dialectics you have thesis, antithesis, and synthesis
What is, why it shouldn't, and what must come next

I promise that I'll never come to a final conclusion about what Anarchism really means
Because anarchy means standing up for your neighbors
Anarchy means letting the people you care about have the choice to not have you in their life
Anarchy means embracing what you love even when it kills you
And maybe it's up to me to make each day worth living
To get out of bed and have a good reason for doing so
Because some of us have to carry the baggage of being awake each day
And some of us live their days painfully sober carrying the pain of emotions unhindered
But the pain I feel now is as meaningless as the imaginary lines that separate countries or the flags that fly over them
My pain is meaningless compared to the knowledge I stepped back so that you could live life according to what you want
Because being an anarchist means living life in accordance to what you think
And that's always been hard for me
For once I knew exactly what I wanted
But I also knew deep down you weren't ever as sure as I was
And here we return to the tension
The tension that has kept me up a few nights and forced be to go on long walks until my feet hurt instead of my heart
The tension that left me feeling like nothing, but not in the way Max Stirner intended it
So instead of hiding this tension or letting it eat away at me like so many times before
I have to live according to what I think
So we have the thesis: looking for stars through a wall of clouds and the hope I had in my heart
The antithesis: uncertainty and a sentimental past two steps ahead of me
The synthesis: Realizing that I need to let you go

And on that day I decided
I wasn't going to go home
Or at least not yet
And so I got in my car and drove the opposite direction and surrounded myself with books and not with the silence and solitude my house offers when no one is home
Where I sit and force myself to believe that there is nothing to do
But on that day I didn't go home
And the days after that I went on walks around neighborhoods with music drowning out all else like I was in Nirvana walking down streets nodding to old men on porches and watching trees sway in gentle breezes
And a few nights later I sat on an old swing in my back yard
And it was in that moment that I thought of you Allen
Allen Ginsberg big beat poet with Buddhist beard and round belly always smiling always there to help a friend whether it's money for Corso or a walk with Kerouac by all the locomotive sunflower days in California
Or Tangiers sipping on mint tea
Or ghats in India
Lost notebooks in Russia or was it Cuba
Oh Allen I think of you now on this summer night
Allen you would have turned 91 today isn't that crazy
The world has only gotten crazier since you left it and there are times I wish you were here because, though I never knew you, you seemed to have a lot of the answers
Like "you'll die when you die there's no use worrying about it"
And Allen wherever you are now I hope you are with Naomi and Peter and Neal and all the other angels you loved so deeply
Allen I wish I could love with half the strength you could
I wish I could see the world through your eyes or at the very least through your eyeglasses
But tonight I will have to make do with the jazz that's coming through my headphones
And the gentle summer breeze through my bedroom window

"I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD."

There's a storm brewing in the pit of my stomach
There's a war knocking at my door
But the thing is
I never open the door for strangers and I don't know if I'm going to start today
When I was young I loved the civil war
In my closet sits my great great great great great grandfather's musket
I read about Ironsides and cornfields matted down with the blood of hundreds of soldiers
In my mind I would fix bayonets at little round top
I would fill fort Sumter with hours of cannon fire
I could see the mural of John Brown
John Brown who I couldn't fully appreciate in my youth
John Brown the wild man who knew that slavery was a sin that would be payed in blood
There he stands between two armies and fires and tornadoes
A book in one hand and a rifle in another
And on the pages of the book simply printed is alpha and omega
Beginning and end
His story shall end where ours begins
While John Brown's body may be lying in that grave they were only able to **** the man
His truth is marching on in every struggle against oppression
In every fight against people who have the audacity to think they can own another
I don't think John Brown would ever be an anarchist
But regardless he was in the business of setting people free
Freedom is a word I still grapple with
I struggle on nights like these to try and imagine what it truly means
And maybe we are afraid of freedom and maybe we all die alone
But if that's the truth you won't hear me preach it
Because only truth I will fight for is well being for all
Food clothing and housing for all
All things for all people
And we shouldn't settle for less
And one day we will achieve it
But for now
The least we can do is be there for each other
I myself, will always be a loser
But that doesn't mean I'll never win
So tonight I'll dream of Ironsides and cannon fire
And I'll live my days standing up for a world that is made for the benefit of all
Because the truth is out there marching on
And with it we can build that perfect future

"Struggle so that all may live this rich, overflowing life. And be sure that in this struggle you will find a joy greater than anything else can give"

May comes with all the showers who, like me, have slept in through April
They hurriedly empty themselves on the dry earth while flowers sit quietly beneath topsoil
My eyes are brown like the topsoil
Patiently waiting for flowers to bloom forth
All of my friends like flowers
And I sit and wonder if I have failed to appreciate the tulips and carnations and black eyed Susan's I have seen
And I wonder what May showers bring

It's quiet now
Deep into the morning and I'm still wide awake
I spent the whole day day-dreaming instead of living it
But that's a problem I have had for awhile now
I'm letting my life pass by before my eyes
Eyes that are like windows and if you look close enough you can just barely see a sign that says "out for lunch" or something along those lines
And the clock on the sign is without hands so you can't tell if I only just left for if I have been gone for 2 or 21 years

Every poem I have been writing has sounded the same
I need help
I need to get out of this purgatory
Either I can't write or I can't help but write the same circles endlessly
I need bolts of lighting
I need a John Brown fiery passion and a thousand tons of gunpowder to blast me out of this ******* rut I'm in
I need Kerouac's railroad earth
I need something I haven't had in a long time
Maybe it's love
Maybe it's hope
Maybe it's a sunflower growing somewhere
So maybe I just need to welcome a few more May showers
And then let the flowers grow

This poem is a list of things I wish weren't true
This poem is meant to hold myself accountable
I'm just another sad white boy who plays guitar
Please do not trust me
I have a lot of trouble putting my convictions where my mouth is
Please don't take me seriously
I have never been able to defend what I believe
I can barely defend myself
In my heart I'm a idealistic anarchist
But my brain knows better
It knows that oppression doesn't disappear overnight
And it knows that when push comes to shove I won't be able to take the heat
I talk a big game
I talk all the time about raising some sort of hell
About taking a stand for the world I want to live in
But I've only ever been good at lying to myself
I'm not a saint and I won't be a martyr
I'm having a hard enough time being a decent person
I'm deathly afraid of what others think of me
I have trouble making eye contact
I have trouble knowing how to act around anybody

I just hope one day I can get ahold of myself
That one day I can finally help those who may need me
I can sit in a room and not feel like everyone is staring at me
One day I will be strong
One day I will be sincere
One day I will stop lying to myself that I am helpless to fix all my problems
That day I'll understand the truth when I see it
The words I will write and speak on stage won't feel so meaningless
I'll finally take my stand
That day will come

But for today
All I can do is be honest with myself
And remind myself to keep working
My revolution must start inside
A better future requires me to take responsibility for who I am
Because freedom without responsibility is at best meaningless and at worst dangerous
So I ask of you
Don't feel sorry for me
But don't judge me too harshly
Because I'm trying my hardest
There's a bright future in the back of my mind
And I intend to reach it
Anarchy means being honest with myself
And Anarchy means facing your fears and insecurities
And taking that step

I drove back out to Yellow Springs
Because I didn't want to go home
And in the darkness I sat alone on a wet bench
Then a black cat crossed my path
And in that moment I felt more blessed than I have in months
The cat came over to sit with me
And quietly we sat there for a half hour or more

There are some days where I truly wake up
In those few moments I feel completely aware
I can feel my self fill every inch of my weary skin and bones
Everything I hear is finally clear
Everything I see is truly real and alive and once again beautiful
But most days feel like I'm half asleep
And everything is a dream
And if it's all a dream then I mourn the loss of all my creativity and curse myself for making this dream reality feel so dull
I am a house
The lights are on but no one's home
Nothing but four walls a roof and echoes of laughter and tears
Echoes that have been bouncing off walls for years
I am an abandoned ship
A sloop floating far far far from the coast
The old man is long gone and I'm lost in the waves
Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up again for a few fleeting moments in the sun
Maybe I'll continue this dreary dream walk
And then I'll dream of a wet bench in the quiet dark
With a black cat on my lap
And tomorrow an eternity away