You sit in your chair, crazy lenses on your eyes
As you perfect your perfect human disguise,
Poking and prodding inside of my skull
With ice picks and drills, never anything dull.
My jaw is locked, and my tongue is now tied.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” you tell me. You lied.
I lay here, strapped down, for what feels like hours,
As your assistant sits in the corner and glowers,
And you slip me some music as if it’s all okay
As blood rushes and gushes out, clear as day.
The buzzing and shaking is all just too much,
And I can’t stop my body from quaking at your touch.
Quaking in fear that this will go horribly wrong,
For I have already been trapped here far too long.
A smile grows on your face as my heartbeat quickens,
And you laugh as it gets louder, and as my body stiffens.
Finally, days later, I’m released from your experiment,
Only to find out, in six months, I’ll be back again.

The ever-present longing
To do it all is creeping back;
The need
     for
        experience.
Invincibility finding a home
In the entirety of my mind.
The desire to
         feel
            everything;
To allow it to fill the lungs;
To engulf a
   mere
      existence.
The yearning to see the world
In the brightest of colors
For exactly
  what
    it
      is,
And even more significantly,
What
  it
    is
      not.
The surface won’t serve to suffice;

To quell this undying urge
To feel;
         To see;
                  To inhale;
     To exhale;
                  To become;
                                 To detach;
To feel the heart furiously beating,
And pumping the world through the body.
Invincible.
      Existing.
            Engulfed in
                  Experience…

His mouth spews shallow stories.
Facts and figures roll off his tongue;
The fact that he reigns in all his glory,
And the figures he makes in the business he runs.

His pockets weigh him down
As people offer to lighten his load on the street.
He turns a blind eye, and continues through town
While they lack clothes on their back and shoes on their feet.

Arrogance radiates from his very being,
And his eyes inspect those below himself.
But they view the world from a point he’s not seeing,
So he turns the other cheek to their cries for help.
He has his suit pressed, his sleeves rolled,
And the perpetual bottle in hand.
He feels no emotion, no matter what he’s told,
As he goes on with his perfect life, head in the sand.

Feet striking the stone,
Hauling this cross on my back.
Wounds from the chains
That once whipped not too long ago.
And I carry not just the cross,
But the weight of my world.
and not just my world, but yours.

Thorns dig into my head,
Ripping my flesh.
The clouds roll in.
Rain pounds the world one drop at a time.
My feet slip atop the mud.

The forest in the distance;
The only sign of life
In this desolate, abandoned town…
So far away.
This journey is utterly bootless.

Suffering for my sins and yours,
The knife in my side is proof.
I saw in my mind, the altar;
The pedestal once revered.
And now, as I trod to my demise,
All I can envision is my crucifixion
As just another story in your book.

Searching for one thing,
I sometimes find another.
Like the time…
The time I searched for freedom;
Freedom from my chains
That hold me down to the ocean floor.

Water filled my lungs.
Salty water burned my eyes.
I cold not breathe, and the darkness;
It began to cloud my vision;
To envelop me; To swallow me whole.
I could no longer see.
Everything gone. I was numb.

I never found freedom.
No, but I fount comfort;
Comfort in the darkness;
Comfort in the truth.
I found comfort in the reality.
This harsh reality that has consumed my mind,
And the harsh reality
That I am my chains.

Every night since life began,
I have been lulled to sleep;
Lulled by your deafening whisper;
Rocked by your protecting arms.

You have to think more.
You have to do more.
You have to be more.

You tell me to do my best.
“That’s all I ask,” you say.
“It’s not much,” you say.
“I’ll never be disappointed,” you say.

But what happens when my best
Doesn’t measure up?
When I don’t come out on top?
When things don’t go
According to your master plan?

You tell me to do my best,
But you’re really saying,
“Do my best.”

Have I lost myself in your standards?
Have I become less like me,
And consumed in you?

No. I do not strive to do your best.
I do not strive to be the best.
I do not even seek my own best.
I simply seek to know the beauty
Of what is beyond be.

Now I am lulled to sleep
By the crunching of leaves,
And the snapping of twigs.

I am cradled in the raw power
Of the ocean tide,
Controlled by the moon,
Far beyond my reach
And far beyond
My mortal comprehension.

Darkness calls my name again.
This artificial happiness fades fast.
It seems as though darkness is my only loyal friend;
The only relationship I have that will last.

These monsters lurk in every corner of my mind
As I search for the meaning in this game that we call life,
And it seems to me that I will never find
A possible way to end this strife.

I can see the stars glitter in the black sky,
But they’re out of my reach; Light years away.
And as these monsters haunt me, I can’t help but wonder why
They have taken up residence in my mind to stay.

Darkness calls my name again.
This artificial happiness fades fast.
It seems as though darkness is my only loyal friend;
The only relationship I have that will last.