The beauty of living life out of the ordinary
Is the view no one else sees.
The tragedy of this lifestyle
Is the lonesome journey to the peak.

I am jealous of you who find love young
And understand how to make it stay
Because I have found it many times
And it always seems to fade away.

I was outside a bar one night, smoking a loaned cigarette and looking at the stars. Next to me was an old man on a stoop, smoking too. He asked me what was one my mind, and I said love.

"It's stupid, the way we think sometimes" I said.

He got up from his stair, and joined me by the street side, looking up at the stars while he took a deep drag, paused for a moment, then exhaled and walked towards the night.

"It's stupid to think."

Living for the highs,
And dying with the lows
It's artistic, how it flows
Unconditionally, with time
Everyday a change
Yet uncomfortably the same
Leaving fleeting feelings
Of guilt and love
And the question
"What will tomorrow bring?"

When I turned sixteen, I brought a girl home drunk and stumbling
A day later, I was interviewed by the government criminal investigation
Two months later, she was disowned by her parents
Last I heard, she's at a rehab in Florida

It's been a long time since I've seen her.

When I was fourteen, I hid cigarettes in my backpack, and lighters in my wallet
Used to sit in the middle of a basketball court and watch my stress float away in a noxious grey cloud
I stashed my twelve dollar pack of coors in a bush behind the half-wall

It's been a long time since I've seen those.

I was thirteen when I found a papercutter in the drawer of the art room.
Took it home with me, fell asleep to the sound of it scathing in and out of its sheath
I once got so frustrated I wanted to slice my throat with it
I threw it out the window

It's been a long time since I've seen it.

When I was fifteen, I went out with friends and got wasted on chocolate liquor
Two weeks later, *****
the day after, tequila
and the week before, strawberry daiquiri
I don't remember much.

It's been a long time since I've done that.

When I was thirteen, I wrote poetry to sort out my emotions

It's been a long time since I've done that...

related to childhood emotional abuse or neglect...
not to be confused with derealization or 'fantasy prone personality'

maladaptive daydreaming is seeing your face when I fall asleep at night
or hearing your voice in a children's store

"Come look! Look at these shoes!", and seeing you scramble at a pair of sandals

Big brown eyes begging me to buy them as "an early birthday present, just this once."

Maladaptive daydreaming
is blinking and not even having time to register the fact that you'd disappeared

and I was standing alone in the children's shoe aisle,
on my knees holding a pair of sandals
and feeling that same twist in my gut that I did on the day

the papers were signed and my passport was stamped,
to get on a plane to another country

without so much as waving goodbye

Maladaptive daydreaming is crying through anti-abortion rhetoric
and sympathising with teenage mothers

it's seeing you smile behind a nikon camera, calling
"Look at this pretty picture I took! See, see?"

and then realising that I was only smiling at a fallen camera in the sand

Maladaptive daydreaming
is regretting a choice I didn't make

it's steeling my jaw at immature jokes
and relating to all those children raising children

Maladaptive daydreaming
is regretting giving up a daughter
I never had

Memories of a place I know
Similarities in this far away view
I close my eyes and pretend its home
I close my eyes and I think of you

Pillows and sheets perfumed with your dreams
Together we fought and shadows we slew
I need your help to fight nightmares it seems
I close my eyes and I think of you

They see a lion, cold and proud
From the start I've seen you true
Kind loneliness you'd not say aloud
I close my eyes and I think of you

Sheets and pillows dampened with tears
Shadows so dark that I cant see through
Lying here in the quiet for what feels like years
I close my eyes and I think of you

Old Elm that murmured in our chimney top
The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
And into mellow whispering calms would drop
When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
And when dark tempests mimic thunder made
While darkness came as it would strangle light
With the black tempest of a winter night
That rocked thee like a cradle to thy root
How did I love to hear the winds upbraid
Thy strength without while all within was mute
It seasoned comfort to our hearts desire
We felt thy kind protection like a friend
And pitched our chairs up closer to the fire
Enjoying comforts that was was never penned

Old favourite tree thoust seen times changes lower
But change till now did never come to thee
For time beheld thee as his sacred dower
And nature claimed thee her domestic tree
Storms came and shook thee with aliving power
Yet stedfast to thy home thy roots hath been
Summers of thirst parched round thy homely bower
Till earth grew iron—still thy leaves was green
The children sought thee in thy summer shade
And made their play house rings of sticks and stone
The mavis sang and felt himself alone
While in they leaves his early nest was made
And I did feel his happiness mine own
Nought heeding that our friendship was betrayed

Friend not inanimate—tho stocks and stones
There are and many cloathed in flesh and bones
Thou ownd a lnaguage by which hearts are stirred
Deeper than by the attribute of words
Thine spoke a feeling known in every tongue
Language of pity and the force of wrong
What cant assumes what hypocrites may dare
Speaks home to truth and shows it what they are

I see a picture that thy fate displays
And learn a lesson from thy destiny
Self interest saw thee stand in freedoms ways
So thy old shadow must a tyrant be
Thoust heard the knave abusing those in power
Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free
Thoust sheltered hypocrites in many an hour
That when in power would never shelter thee
Thoust heard the knave supply his canting powers
With wrongs illusions when he wanted friends
That bawled for shelter when he lived in showers
And when clouds vanished made thy shade ammends
With axe at root he felled thee to the ground
And barked of freedom—O I hate that sound

It grows the cant terms of enslaving tools
To wrong another by the name of right
It grows a liscence with oer bearing fools
To cheat plain honesty by force of might
Thus came enclosure—ruin was her guide
But freedoms clapping hands enjoyed the sight
Tho comforts cottage soon was ****** aside
And workhouse prisons raised upon the scite
Een natures dwelling far away from men
The common heath became the spoilers prey
The rabbit had not where to make his den
And labours only cow was drove away
No matter—wrong was right and right was wrong
And freedoms brawl was sanction to the song

Such was thy ruin music making Elm
The rights of freedom was to injure thine
As thou wert served so would they overwhelm
In freedoms name the little so would they over whelm
And these are knaves that brawl for better laws
And cant of tyranny in stronger powers
Who glut their vile unsatiated maws
And freedoms birthright from the weak devours