Travelling higher than God through my former wasteland
Skyline was littered with star spangled pariahs
and the Earth swallowed the bones of the believers
And for the street youth, burning rage into their skin and choking the ashes down for supper they left no shelter
These are the spirits that sing your soulless chorus
These are the ghosts that bear your unborn demons in utero
These are the convicts that kneel humbled outside your door, crossing themselves in fervor every time you walk past
These are the junkies that sketch your morbid admiration in dull sidewalk chalk
These are the con men that pace restless across your bitter heart
And these are the children you lead to ruin, baptized by filth and fury

Wasteland, I gave you my youth
The screams of the lovers I buried with you haunt me still
Though the cathedral of the ghosts I made has long since emptied
My brothers, my sisters, my dearly departed psychoses
For you all I will return, a martyred liar,
Crucify me atop the graveyard of my artwork
And paint shades of vivid gray with my ashes
Wasteland, I've given you all and now I'm nothing

they sighed
The 5 o'clock mass of late winter apathy
Borne ceaseless to and from and back again
To Salt Lakes to frozen sky to unfeeling supermarket self checkout lane
To the dawn that brought life and the dusk that killed again
From sea to shining sea to burning bush
and a grand halo for all the art majors,
scathing editorial for the industry people
On the freeway passed out stone black sinners under veil of Southern sky
And narcotics agents circling up and down the block
Cancer dependent martyrs all,
The Saint, the Wolf, and his ****** Lover
Trash can fires turn to frozen hellscape
To Babylon out West past the Rockies and North of the Gulf
Mother of ghosts slaving away at an impotent family supper
And she let a single tear fall and whispered,
"This one will bring me luck,
It may not be much now, but just wait
There's gonna be a ******* riot when the Wolf comes home"

take me and break me
a ragged doll
my porcelain skin cracked open and your shadows creeped in
i try to hold myself together
but it's hard when someone else holds the strings
        how do you do it?
i am full of holes
you spill out of me like blood from an open wound
        how could you do it?
you made me into nothing
i am still in awe
still curious
am i your muse or your monster?

Wicked winds howled senseless from Great Lakes to Navajo
Screaming eulogies for the frantic madmen
And the love of rage they shot their veins black with
And the additive-free sadness that filled their lungs with ashes
Broke down church bells tolled, once, twice, three times on the hour
Resounding enough to wake Virgina her revered dead
The heart of mighty Shenandoah beats in shades of revolutionary red
And DC sleeps uneasy under armed guard
Here is where your mother lies and bleeds empathy to the tune of Suburbia's solemn hymns
And here is where your brother ticks his weight in manic speculation and nervous wondering
And here is where you straddle the nuclear armaments of culture atop the shoulders of those lonely mad giants you hold so dear
A dying breed, a skeletal frame of burning purpose and relentless conviction
The last great hunter of the American Dream
They said their prayers, their rosaries, and their benedictions floated carelessly off to nothing, from nothing
Laid to rest on the edge of a cornfield six feet under cold Earth and laughing heavens
Heads bowed in lurid admiration tempered with contempt
For the soul of the devil of the world to come

I don't want there to be a day where I have to read a speech at my best friend's funeral because she commited suicide.

I don't want to have to say how cruel and horrid the world is to destroy such an amazing and innocent person.

I don't want to watch her happiness wipe away from her face as sadness and darkness plagues her heart.

I don't wanna get that call in the middle of the night telling me my friend is gone.

I don't want to dream of her smiling, to wake up to a dying soul.
But a dream is only a dream..

I don't want to be watched by a ghost of a friend who didn't want to live.

But, it's happening. People will keep being cruel to the most loving people, until they no longer want to be in this hell.

I don't want to watch a friend die.

Please don't make me.

she had been
stabbing herself
with her own knife
until he took it from her

and right as she believed
that he was trying to help
he handed her a larger one
and said,
"here, try this one"