On the first day, I'll look to you
And see the light of the Earth
Alive in everything you do.
And on the second day,
I'll create my own world of seclusion
Away from all of your ignorance.
But they can't all be ballads
Because where would suffering
Finally find its home?

On the third day, I'll discover
Folk music and rhyme.
I'll waste my time
Seeing what isn't there,
The ideals I've made my shelter.
On the forth day
I'll hold you in my arms,
Kiss you deeper than I ever have.
Force you into things you don't understand.
Because you're like a thirty-something year old ******,
Thinking a metal underwire is a pack of smokes.
But they can't all be ballads,
They can't all be the same.
If they were,
None of us would be in possession of our names.

On the fifth day,
I'll leave you after finding discontentment
Over how you find upset in unfamiliar places
And make minnows into whales.
On the sixth day, I'll regret it
But have nothing left to say...

They can't all be ballads anyway.

Maybe one day I'll come to a stoplight
And see an old Mercedes sedan
And think the driver to be you.
Maybe so.
I'll never be able to completely cleanse my mind
Of the memories we made;
I know that.
Some day, I'll have my radio blasting,
"All You Need is Love" will play
And perhaps I will shed a tear.
But I won't know until I get out of this rut-
Pry myself from this dark, cold hole
And try again.
Maybe one day I'll see a teenage girl walk by
With a Let it Be shirt on
And you'll be the first person to come to mind.
Perhaps I'll use my Mercurochrome once more
And remember how you introduced it to me.
I'll remember that not even Mercurochrome
Can fix my broken heart.
Nothing can. Except the second chance
I'm giving myself.
I also suppose I will never stop at a BP for gas
And I'll never be able to look at Elton John
The same way again.
I can live with that.
I'll forever be reminded of you
By the Rescuers ornament on my Christmas tree
And James Bond.
One day,
I'll be dusting off my records.
One by one, cleaning their plastic covers
Until I reach Band On the Run.
Then I'll have to smile fondly
And laugh at the fun we had.
I suppose you'll always be on my mind;
A year can do a lot to a person.
But one thing I'll never forget
Is our fun memories
And your old Mercedes sedan.

My teddy bear is dying.
It cannot see the light.
My teddy bear is dying,
But it's trying to fight.

My teddy bear is burning
As it is held over the lit stove.
My teddy bear is burning
And I have not been told.

My teddy bear is drowning;
Its polyester is soaked with sea.
My teddy bear is dying
And it cannot see me.

It cannot see me as I cry
Praying to God it will not die...
But as it drowns, it will not see
That with it, my childhood is dying in me.

My teddy bear is dying...
Someone?
Pull it up from the sea
And please save me.

I swear we were loosing it.
How can you expect a regular man
To last longer than a week
Alone
On an island of sanity
Amid an ocean or insanity?
How could you expect me to zip my mouth up
Like a woman's dress
And keep calm about my situation?
How could you let me count off the numbers
Only to put them back once again?
How could you think
That white walls
And impertinent lies
Could mask the suffering fear
Swelling inside of me?
How could you touch me
With those cold unfeeling hands
As my friends washed up on the shore
More dead than they ever could have been?
How could you lay me out in the sun,
Watch crimes unfold
While you still expected me to be a regular man once home?
In that moment
With the knife lingering over my scalp,
I made a decision to get the Hell out
And I have no regrets regarding it.
You can chase me down:
Scream at me,
Rap your knuckles at my door.
I'll tell you to put it where the sun don't shine
Along with a dishonorable Section 8 discharge
And the little bits of my decrepit sanity.

I got judged all this morning
On how well I could fill in bubbles
On a Scantron sheet.
Well,
My friend Johnny
Hasn't got any arms.
How do you suppose
We measure his intelligence
If he cannot fill in the bubbles?

He looked me in the eyes
The other summer night
And told me of the abominations men of the world
Impose on women of the world
As if I didn't know them.
As if I weren't the ******
That time had ****** so,
So,
So ******* many times.
He told me I would never find a man
Who would treat me better than he.
But I found my hero
Without having to run away with Proud Mary.

And I may have found him
A midst empty days
And a longing to fill a chasm I found deep within myself,
But I found him nonetheless.
And as I sit here,
Awake for days and
Sick,
I hear his words echo
Like back blows
Administered
To the lungs of a Cystic Fibrosis patient.

He told me men on Craigslist
Look for women to ****
And women call their vaginas "oceans"
To try to pick up men.

But my love wants only a partner
To participate in a round of Super Smash Bros. with.

I. I thought you were her world;
   Her paperback novel
   She could ponder quotes in
And crack the spine of.
   But you’ve now got police orders against you
And the pain of missing you
   Seers the seams of her striped-sweater heart
   And though you’re trying to get into Green and Ginsberg,
   She can’t see what the big deal is.
   You were the Holden Caulfield
   To her Jane Gallagher
   But Holden never took Phoebe
   To the mattress so
   I guess that makes the two of you
   Sid and Nancy
   Instead.

II. I suppose she never believed you
   When you told her that you were an alcoholic.
   Because alcohol burns
   And though you lit her fire,
   You couldn’t keep it burning.
   You told her that you didn’t read
   And she should have
   Backed away then.
   But she didn't.
   Because you played accordion
   And dressed like Gatsby
   And she adored that for a good while.
   Until you told her that you despised the Rolling Stones
   And may have committed a ******.
   Even then she did not back away
   Because you bought her cigarettes
   And hit on other girls
   While she waited for you
   To give her the boot.

III. She liked your accent
   But it was just a sweet, endearing cover up
   For a mind as empty as a gypsy’s wallet
   And a rich man’s soul.

IV. You liked to give her drags
   Off your E-cigarette
   Because it tasted like cherry Pez
   And you wanted her to see
   Or rather, taste,
   The magic.
   Kissing you was like magic
   Until
   You moved on to an older broad.

V. Everytime
   Her lips met yours
   You tasted like heavy *****
   And she was too desperate and twisted
   To really give much of a ****.
   So she accepted it
   And moved on.
   Because you called her pretty
   And made out with her in the forest,
   Denim scratching denim,
   Hearts hurting hearts.

VI. She didn’t know you were homeless.
   Or, rather,
   Maybe she did
   But she didn’t accept it.
   Like an elderly doesn’t accept death at first
   And attempts to bargain.
You smelled horrible…
   She believed it to be a natural thing.
   But you were neglecting your hygiene and with that,
   Her as well.
   And the only thing you cared more for than ***
   Was the *** Pistols.

VII. You asked her to take off her glasses one day
   And with one look of her freckled,
   Pimple-shell ridden face,
   You told her she looked like Ramona Flowers
   And upon googling who that was,
   She nearly crapped herself in glee.
   She should have taken it as a sign
   When you began to find
   And tiny reason to touch her in as playful a way you could.
   Through tiny nudges
   She should have seen the possibility of romance blossoming.
   But you were 29
   And she, 17.
   Twelve years, practically
   Three Presidents
   Between the two of you.
   But your undivided ideals
   Brought you only closer together.
   You were an English education major,
   With a III mark after your name
   And Megaman on your walls.
   She took one look
   At the astounding possibilities,
   Drew a breath and fell in love with
Every little thing about you.
Every single,
Unnoticeable thing about you,
From the scar
Stretching down your spine
To the scruff on your chin…
She fell
Deeper in love with you
Than she ever had before.
And she saw a dream,
A future,
That came in on a hot summer day
With Taco Bell
And destiny.