Late at night is when I think
And try to I clear my head
I often stay awake all night
Just laying in my bed

As soon as I get comfy
Thoughts start racing in
I start to question everything
and regret my every sin

At first the thoughts are gentle
Like what will I do tomorrow
But as time crawls by; they escalate
Till I'm drowning in my sorrow

I think of all my failures
Every detail of what I did wrong
After hours of reliving pain
I convince myself I don't belong

I suddenly feel isolated
and like the silence will never end
I feel like I will never escape
There's too much I just can't mend

I feel overpowered and worthless
Like I'll never do anything right
I hide till the world fades away
And I'm awoken by the light

I realize a new day has come
It's time to put on a brave face
I put those negative thoughts away
Until I return to this place

I wanted so badly to uncover a bright clean heart in you
I kept on digging like a mad dog in the dirt

I know it's gotta be here somewhere.
See this is urgent
All I wish for now is to find a glimmer of hope in the dirt
And climb on up to the surface with that treasure in the palm of my hand.

"See! Proof that you want to live to see tomorrow"

Superman ain't super anymore.
He snorted all the kryptonite
and spilled some on the floor.
His cape is in the lost and found
somewhere on the underground
Superman ain't super anymore.

The Man of Steel's heart, colder now than steel
Lois slapped him on the chops
for trying to cop a feel.
Front page of the Daily Planet
Lois wouldn't let him have it
The Man of Steel's heart colder than before.

The problems of the world knock on the door
Superman has fallen down
he's sleeping in the hall.
Crying between fits of snoozing
wishing he could stop the boozing
The problems of the world knock on the door.

Even the idea was worthy of a fight
and all too much preparation.
We dolled ourselves up for alienation,
even though the faces present
were so familiar and etched into memory.

Who are you Mr.Cool?
If that is your real name.
Whiskey breath and filterless smokes
only impresses the girls in the movies,
with scripts written by clueless men
like you, who can't supply injury
so they bring only insult.

You are a secretary bird,
a mime, and the copycat kid.
Trying to be a bad boy and hide
amongst the spoiled brats you claim.

Keep on burrowing and severing ties,
ravishing resources leads to ruin.

You say you've heard rumors?
Well, I've heard facts.
I've seen facts!

Your parasitic disguise will crumble
under the weight of your genuinely selfish persona.
While the company I keep will only know
the side you wished to reveal
in front of all the pretty boys and girls.

My uncle slit a man's throat with a box cutter in my childhood home and didn't apologize.
Sitting in a circle filled with crack smoke and stale beer breath.
This is a shining example of what I've lived with
and the lengths I've had to go to escape the thing people call "destiny".

Thievery, lies, pressure, and violence
has been calling my name for the longest.
But I know the voice too well to be taunted.  

Words are my freedom and words are my piece of mind.
There is not a single substitute.
Whether poem, prose, or paragraph,
This is the only calling I've ever had.

I've lived with a hoarder, addicts, senility, and ignorance
in a variety of different combinations and forms.
At times, power, water, freedom, money, necessities, have all been an unachievable thing to me.
Lost to the vile goals of those folk I love.
I am the only one who sees the beauty in the fragile and odd.
The others see only a mess on a paper, and move their eyes to the nearest glowing box.

My father drowned when I was six.
My grandfather followed soon after.
My mother felt the stab of this and caved so many times.
I witnessed and shared the burden of her pain and grief.
My grandmother forgot everything she ever loved or knew, and short after passed as well.
Pets and possessions,
friends and followers.
All gone with a drastic breeze.
I am the one with the vision, but I am trapped in a shell of a city,
covered with that wretched stink of refined soy.

Will I be able to unburden the world from myself?
You all give me such great courage and allow me to share the beauty as I see it.
You all have such great skill with symbols and it makes me feel like home isn't far.
I want this. I want this.

If I keep breathing like the rest of the world
I feel I may miss the sound of the world's heartbeat.
But my death would not bring a solution for the ones I love.
Only a warrant for more death.
I need this. I need this.

With my words, I conjure up hell.
And hell brings with it the familiar.
Run little kitties, run.
The Doubling House and The Sequential Church will not hold forever.
My havens are temporary, but the craters are forever.
I will struggle till the pain becomes all I am
and I buckle under the weight of what I shouldn't have taken
from the mighty Atlas.

I do this for me.
I do this for you.

I see around me tombstones grey
Stretching their shadows far away.
Beneath the turf my footsteps tread
Lie low and lone the silent dead -
Beneath the turf - beneath the mould -
Forever dark, forever cold -
And my eyes cannot hold the tears
That memory hoards from vanished years
For Time and Death and Mortal pain
Give wounds that will not heal again -
Let me remember half the woe
I've seen and heard and felt below,
And Heaven itself - so pure and blest,
Could never give my spirit rest -
Sweet land of light! thy children fair
Know nought akin to our despair -
Nor have they felt, nor can they tell
What tenants haunt each mortal cell,
What gloomy guests we hold within -
Torments and madness, tears and sin!
Well - may they live in ectasy
Their long eternity of joy;
At least we would not bring them down
With us to weep, with us to groan,
No - Earth would wish no other sphere
To taste her cup of sufferings drear;
She turns from Heaven with a careless eye
And only mourns that we must die!
Ah mother, what shall comfort thee
In all this boundless misery?
To cheer our eager eyes a while
We see thee smile; how fondly smile!
But who reads not through that tender glow
Thy deep, unutterable woe:
Indeed no dazzling land above
Can cheat thee of thy children's love.
We all, in life's departing shine,
Our last dear longings blend with thine;
And struggle still and strive to trace
With clouded gaze, thy darling face.
We would not leave our native home
For any world beyond the Tomb.
No - rather on thy kindly breast
Let us be laid in lasting rest;
Or waken but to share with thee
A mutual immortality -

iwishiwasdeadsoicouldntthinkanymore

Its hard to concentrate
When your thoughts rattle around
Like machinegun fire
Caught in complicated clockwork
Trying to captivate
One cognitive idea
About Life
Conglomerate

While the tapestries
Of cliches attempt
To coalesce as they
Cascade
Only to fall away
As they dribble out my ears
The critics are unimpressed.

There is no one on this earth
Who is still interested
In simple lyrics backed by
Overwhelming overtures
When the focus is on expenditures
And the bottom line wont budge

Its as if it holds a grudge
Torturing visionary artists
Hiding in their closets
From monsters under the bed
And detained by superego authorities
While alone and afraid
Locked in Negative Headspace

But the artists becon of light
Is an ironic twist of common life
In a pedestrian plight
Captured on 8mm film
And put on Lifetime.

How do you write a song when
The melody is wrong
But the lyrics flow from the hand
Like the last latent ramblings
Of a dying, possessed man
Onto the page as
The imaginary lines fade
And the surreal becomes real

And in your head its something you can hear

In your gut, its something you can feel

But the fingers on the guitar
Cant catch these falling stars
And before we go to far
Its time to take a step back
To breathe

The guitar bleeds
But its blood isnt music
And if you turn away you lose it
As the sound gets trapped behind
The saturated limitations of the mind
The brass threads slowly unwind
Only to stab you in the neck.

And still,
The critics are unimpressed.

Don’t follow me in the car, don’t tell me who you are.
Don’t whisper in my ear, just to watch the fear
spark up in each eye, just because I’m scared to die.
Don’t taunt me with your power, not at this late hour.
twomoreblocks…twomoreblocks…
Won’t you leave me alone, I only want to go home.
I still hear your voice, forward is my only choice.
Head down, collar up, pray. Please, oh please, no further delays.
onemoreblock…onemoreblock…
Don’t grab my hand, please understand.
You know I’m alone, just let me go home.
Don’t pull my hair, don’t touch me there.
I have a past and a future, too. But that all means nothing to you.
Don’t make me regret my identity, when you know nothing at all about me.

-M. Hale
8.1.11