Dekalb,
Where the soil demanded a sacrifice
Of the girl with the sunflower tattoo

Dekalb,
Where I left a lot of blood
Defending your honor

Rockford,
In ICU where I woke up with
Angels at the end of my hospital bed

Rockford,
Where I woke up
on the phone
with my best-friend's ex

Arlington Heights
Where we attempted
to find our lost minds together

Arlington Heights,
...it was kind of a funny story

Illinois,
I've given you all
and I'm still here *******.

If you find me staring off
I'm probably trying to orchestrate
Forced hallucinations
We call reality
Merging layers of fantasies
That ones where we photoshopped our dreams
Pouring them out of our hands
to imitate art

I look to the sky as a canvas
Using my wracked mind as a weapon
Exploiting the sun in my eyes
As enlightenment
The grand totality of everything
And the line of time

Lost a bet with myself that this was wishful thinking
It's just a constant mirror
Reflecting the unseen unconscious
We're all in here manifesting some parts
Of our skewed imagination

No matter how violent
The nose bleed
Or lapse in consciousness
Getting lost in flashes of lights
Seizuring out the message
A sign from some higher power

I'm not here to capitalize on you
     I'm just here to exploit your emotions

I'll be your new anti-depressant  
     Your defense mechanism
     Your Oral fixation

Your morals are safe with me
     I promise

Take this down and try calling in the morning
     You're not numb anymore
     I'm your electric addiction
     Your unorganized prescription

Little Miss OCD Queen supreme 
     I'll give you something to run with
     When you're feeling uninspired

Sweet ambrosia,
Straight from my loaded God complex
      That oxytocin's a helluva drug

Come on,
Invite me in
and
choke
down
my
angelic
soul

Breathe in and out the light,
before darkness falls
let me transmute your pain to medicine.

To: The one 
that can draw 
The grandiosity
Out of me

To write you a ******* song

Come on,
**** 
the
words
right 
out
of 
My
*mouth

My kiss eclipsed
From lips to lips

As above so below
From face to hips

Red wine tongues
Tasting teasing and tossing

Deliver the final blow
And suffer the euphoric bliss

I wrapped my lips
around your neck

Drank you down
kept palates wet

You left marks
I know just what
you meant

Bottoms up
     choke the message down
Little girl
     Do you wanna tear each other apart?
****** set
     fire to my *****

Heart shaped x-ray glasses
Now reality is the new *** tape
We're all framed in

Oh,
The transgressions you keep rewinding
Because fantasies just slow you down
Oh,
When you wanna keep moving
find grace in what you're doing
Oh,
The progressions the soul makes
when it follows the
heart beaten
path
Oh,
Can you even last?
I know
sometimes
I can't

I just wanna get off one time
     and not apologize
For spilling my guts
     trying to center
Your settled half-emptied glass
When all you needed was a refill.

Your past
has constantly got you
trigger
finger itchin'
pulling
at the stitches

Tempting you to spill
your insides out
To re-write love on your arms
Like you meant the cuts
To cut the conversation short

Capitalizing
a blood loss
in a blog
of glamorized
self-inflicted
battle scars

Some masochistic pride
pulled you into the abyss
Where do you draw the line?
Between exploitation
and raising awareness?

Are you aware, or are you tuned out?
     Behind your technology
     Do you feel invincible?

The singularity isn't near enough to save you

Intuition leaks,
     fight or flight gets rampaged

Sensory overload,
     the main power grid shuts down

Man vs. animal instinct
     in a creation throw-down

*We sent out the distress call via status update...

My heart starts
panic attacking
my nervous system
fighting
or
fleeing
or
freezing
impulses
OCD stacking
breaths
count them
one through ten
then back again

To this very moment
where it's coming together

I haven't eaten anything
All **** day
is what it feels like

I swear I'm not this weak

My racing thoughts are just paused on
******* falling apart
at any moment

Shuffled
until I'm present

Her
touch
tapping
tips
of my fingers
grounding
all my
impulses
and
channeling
my
transgressions

Until we are one
breath
counted back again

Conjuring
an idea
of you

that I can’t explain

like
Je ne sais quoi

You're still
wracking my brain

But now I’ve got you
on the
ta-ta
tip of my
tongue

I want to paint you
like one of those
French girls

le petite mort
You came
and went

Girl in the white
dress

You brought the light like
Sookie Stackhouse.
You wanna do
real bad things with me
A little stranger than fiction

You’re my strangest addiction
The only one
I’d ever spill my True Blood for
From here until the true death

le petite mort
You came
and went

Girl in the white
dress

Mesmerized
by them Lake Michigan Eyes
I saw everything I fear
and everything I desire

You got me
right where you want me
right where I want to be
like a willing sacrifice

le petite mort
You came
and went

Girl in the white
dress

You were my favorite
femme fatale
forcing me to face this
fiery finale

You and me
enlightenment-to-be
Like Nirvana
come on blow my mind

Darling,
     I feel more punk rock
     when I'm without you

Like I want to destroy something beautiful
     or break the first rule of Fight Club
     to summon you back to me

But temptation's a *****
     like destiny

The only things that are true in life
     is that it's stranger than fiction
     like synchronicity
     or our souls' electricity

Princess,
     Give me a task
     to earn the privilege
     to transcend the right time
     and the right space
               of your day.

It's that feeling of temptation fleeting
forgetting the ego
and ******* it all to chance
or pretending like you know how it's all going to happen

Fate faked until it's made
we were new gods predicting the way things would happen
hurt or held against our helping hands
to our beating ****** hearts
for the next person we hand it off to
to feel the warmth in everything

What are we passing on
and where do we hold ourselves back from
the call to adventure?

We so carelessly led ourselves into reality

Realler than any other *******
forgetting
What it's like to hold on

I feel like I got a song in me
Fortunate for you
I'm in tune to your stupid ******* heart

Let me in like a vampire invite

I am anorexia

I am the human condition
the **** of man
the status quo
the holy union
of Ms. America
and Capitalism

I will hold no peace
at the ritual
we all worked so hard
to hold together

But you can love without money
blood is running money

My hands are tied around this next new little thing
She's just another missing peace
To the eternal void
of the allegory of my emptiness

mood swinging to I hate you
don't ever ******* leave

I left the best part out
She's the goddess of the myth
she's the one I long for ever more from
the depths of my dreams

She can fix everything
probably

I just have to think about her
This ideal muse
mending my broken heart
Does she know how bad this loneliness hurts?

I just want to feel something
I want to resonate

and work myself to completion
Controlling everything from the eternal electricity

Deep beneath
buried away
giving my very best

But where do I go?
I want to be everywhere
Alive in anything that is or isn't
nailed down

When I feel so stuck.

We were galaxies

Bursting in
                   Bursting out

Time after
Time again

     History was repeating
   but we were missing out

I'm sorry I corrupted your immortal soul

Sometimes you gotta
     tease the darkness out darling

Sometimes when you're standing
     On the edge of everything
     You're free to feel anything

It's only when we're standing
     At the edge of death,
     We've never felt more alive

Like the rush that we get
     When we destroy fine art
     With our minds

We never felt more avant-garde
     Until we set the world on fire
     Just to watch it burn

Are we listening,
     Or are we judging what we hear?

Like lightning striking
tenses my chest
with regret
at night

Every time I hear John Mayer,
I think of how I pirated
Battle Studies
in an attempt
to get down your pants

And as I drove down
to your school in Bloomington
it was the soundtrack
when I was inside of you
for those couple minutes

Giving whiskey-****
disappointment
a name
Like Heartbreak Warfare

I want someone who is
More than just a cure for my loneliness
Someone who can seal my madness with a kiss

More than a pretty face
An electric soul
a fiery grace
More than static
Over and out of control

Til death do we tear each other apart
Reworking our guts into the bigger picture
You can't spell heart without "art"

To the one who can supernova my senses with
a stare
     a touch
          a telepathic tug

*Just be here now

I just wanna know
what you taste like
We already know
that the distance
pulls right
where we
would write
About each other
At the sake of breaking ambiguity
somewhere between the lines
A missing bond ever reached
like the unknown we teased
To the depths of our souls
Speaking telepathy
I lost my ******* mind
Before you found me
Broken
Hoping
Looking for an opening
Anywhere you
want me
to be
To cleanse your palate
in between the
salt/sweat/sugar sheets
Twisted in my tongue
tied to
your bed
Every time
I bite into your words
Again and again.

Win* at this place
     if you show your battle scars

Derail yourself here
     on the wrong side of the track marks

You ******* limbs
     limping out
     snorted up
     the finish line

Bumped the rest your night
     off a Batman Begins DVD in a dingy basement
Running up the stairs at night
     crying out into the stars that you'll fight
     until the world is yours

The neighborhood is wishing it had deaf ears for this to fall on

But you'll fall out in due time
     your recipe for reality
     leaves a chemical aftertaste
For morning regrets
     that last
          a lifetime

I've seen the best minds of my generation get wasted
     Burnt into routine at the good side of 25

Stop dying out,
There's a fire that rises within us all
Stop snuffing it out,
Your time will come
To drag yourself out of the prison pit of existence
Don't you believe it?
Don't you feel it?
*deshi basara

Remember when we used to sleep above the covers?
     We would keep warm at night
     Just holding each other.

Since you're gone,
      Your body's been replaced 
      with a body pillow at surface level

Now I've got no one to sing to sleep
Now I've got no one to muse my demons away

Now I'm just dreaming of waking up 
     in body bags anymore
     
Cold and next to nothing.

What scares me the most is, 
     I wouldn't call it a nightmare

Maybe I'm the peace missing
      From your broken mind
Where your demons dominate your compulsions
     Wait 'til you get a load of mine

Intervention
That's what the town needs
This is where our stories cross over
Intersection
the battle lines in the street
On the right side of the track marks
The rest is just memories in battle scars
Maybe the ones they dented in
maybe the ones self-inflicted
The skin graffiti doesn't run
It's fight or flight that led you here
Take a breath and distribute
all along the being
back to the heart
you followed the path
Now create your own rehabilitation reality
and relapse on innocence
your missing peace of mind
betrayed by arrogance

The wise words taken for granted
The writing on the walls of the establishment. 

Just when we want to burn it all down
Just when we realize how small we are

The sky opens up
My third eye's opening
Channeling the guardian angel
In the little black dress

A silver sliver 
among the dazzling dynamo of night
waning away illumination
before the dark moon of my mind

I hear her voice resonating whispers
On the astral plane of miscarried ghosts
I'm humming along

Summoning
     some
          summer
               sweetness

To help build me out of the cavities
Behind the teeth
I'm faking a smile in front of

Trying to climb without the rope
Out of the prison pit of existence

To salvage the creations
I snuffed out
Before the light became them
Abortions of ideas
Survived by hope and curiosity

Where will this take me now?
I feel a hand grab mine

Her wisdom crawls up my spine
Setting my mind on fire
I am the new illumination

Reality in focus
Turning my impossibles
Into I'mpossibilities

I drew the shades 
And shut myself 
off from the world 

Let me lay in the darkness
Of this abyss
I'd rather suffer here
Than out there 
With the rest of the world's *******

Somewhere in the back 
Of my mind I'm fixated
On my most ****** up failures

Nothing ever lasts
So don't get attached
Everyone leaves
So don't ever love

2 days in this bed
It was 3 days last week

Maybe tomorrow 
I'll feel a little more god-like 
When the wolves are at the door

What if we kissed while I get 5150’d?
POV: I just met you
You’re in the dayroom oversharing me your
Sketchbook of celestial imagery
Running your fingers through my hair
Translating Le Petit Prince en Français
As you hold the English version-

Holding my head in your lap
I’m the womb in the wounds in your wrists
Filling the void
In your arms
where You just lost your baby;

I've been missing you, Life
You change like the seasons
In how much time I've wasted
It was a matter of time before I was wasted
The drunken bargaining with myself
For a better tomorrow

Into entry levels
A means to an end
To the point of meaningless ends
To consume and acquire all
Everything just becomes like echoes in a hall

What's behind the right door?
I know my heart beats the path
But where do I drop the four on the floor?
I'm always running with someone else's song

Living in harmony
Was always wishful thinking
But hope is a helluva drug
I'll self-medicate with what's right for me
Relocate my mind's wiring
To wire tap reconditioning

I just need to be restimulated
Desensitized by the mundane
Monday through Fridays
Into an unfulfilling 9-5
Cubicle anti-life

Burning the candle at both ends
Trying to find the fire inside

To the girl with the pin-up dreams,
Keep reaching for them.

Like the time you reached out
Like a dream and gave me
that over-the-pants-hand-job.

In my car, after work,
waiting for your train to come,
After I did.

Abilify
you seemed to amplify
the monster inside me

Vivid dreams
of a devil in the driver seat,
Mirrored back
in my rearview, 
on the way to a crime scene
in my mind
where one of our sisters
was given plastic surgery
via shotgun

A crackling static
tears through my brain
and takes me
to the Ideation of 
self-inflicted martyrdom

Idealized death
put on a pedestal

hanging
in a basement
Of the subconscious

Until I wake up and suffer

I've
Had enough of
the akathisia

I can’t ******* sit still
I feel like 
my heart is going to beat out of me
When I’m already light-headed
I see me from outside me

Depersonalized!
this blood is poisoned 
with restless impulses

I can’t fight
or flight
just freeze 
and pulsate
an S.O.S.
to the telegraph 
at the other 
end of this the 
other half of
This sorry soul:

*If pain is a void 
I can feel you missing 
Where the doctor
Filled the hole
With prescriptions.

Will you hold me,
hold me,
until these looping
distress calls
cease?

At a crossroads again
With the ghost of my regrets
Spirit of the stairwell
We can only ascend

"We'll always have Shoe Factory Road"
she says
As she plunges the dagger
Into me

So slowly,
Taking her time
Twisting the blade
Deep
between
Bone
and the guts
I never spilled
Before her
Holy Matrimony

She tells me she'll
Always love me
Beyond physical means

Cutting even deeper
While she's everlasting
with my soul successor.

Standing on ceremony
I should have never
Held my peace.

At a crossroads again
with the ghost of my regrets
Spirit of the stairwell
*Only I can ascend.

Are you OK?*
I lack my own approval most days.

Why haven't you been eating?
It's a spiritual fast.

Why have you been isolating yourself?
I'm trying to formulate a plan to save the world.
Somehow.

Any thoughts of hurting yourself?
What's life without a few battle scars?

What are your triggers?"
That's a very loaded question...

"You need to be more self-aware"*

At least that's what the voices in my head keep telling me.

We're all living
     for little deaths

Moments of some
     skewed inspiration

Pleasure out of desperation
of short-term goals

This is all now
right as I type this
Are you aware
that you're already
enlightened?

Stop searching
time is like string
and we're already right
where we need to be
******* with infinity

right here,
in this very ******* moment

Where your heart beats
     with empathic connection

With instant bliss
     knowing that together
     we all feel this

I wanna be spellbound 
Without a destination
Just a journey
Into the depths of imagination
Where i'm dragging the lake for a muse
In some skewed desperation

Something to keep me going
Like the chills shooting for enlightenment
Up the spine of the self-aware machine
they made me

Missing a missing peace/piece
Searching for someone as lost as me
In a chaos we're both tearing through
Along the heartbeaten path 

Back to her place
Where I'm always finishing last
In more ways than you could understand
Until I'm standing over her
Running her hair back
After she's done
When belts lay undone

Hands fashioned around hips
Courting a release mechanism
Out of the machinery of soul 
Something for her to run with
When she's all out of road

I'm slowly starting to realize
that belief
or lack thereof
is relative to our survival

It's responsible for how far we've come
and what it took to get here

Time is just as important
It can be destructive
or constructive
relative to our
self-created path

Like our handwritten story
Starting where it ends
or does yours always
end at the start?

I'm slowly starting to realize
that the world is the canvas
and we're imitating art

I heard
that the darkness
finally blinded you

With the
temptation
of permanent
bliss

You kept running
through that garden
looking to get
your fix

So wickedly
seduced into
rebirth

Do you finally
see just like
a child?

Without eyes
you let
the truth
weigh in
intravenously

and burn
your garden
down

The wind always find a way to put me in my place
     Though, I don't know where it's going
     I don't think it knows where it's going.

It's just running on empty through my hair gracefully
     In an attempt to breathe life back into me.
     Via my crown connection to the cosmos

Hey Wind,
     Can you bring me the world?
     How about dropping prosperity in my lap?
     Like some self-entitled ******* child of privilege

Hey Wind,
     What if I save the girl?
     She'll probably end up saving me from myself anyway
     Divine intervention from the mind of my inmost cave

Hey Wind,
     I've got good intentions
     I'm just throwing it out there
     I'll use my senses in discretion

Like pouring a heart out
Into some empty pages
and labeling it as art.

Our own life interpretation
Reality in the hands of those who wish to create
Relative to how you wish to change

Become what you think

Just remember
Intention is everything
The wind always finds a way to put everything in place.

Enemies arise
when I close my eyes
and push them back

Until I see constellations
sparks coming off of stars
of divinity vs. temptation

A transcendence I romanticize
until I got lost trying to focus
back on the truth

As Mara's army fires arrows
I feel the presence.

breathe in, breath out
sat nam

The Earth bears witness,
arrows explode
into blooming flowers

I am still here
I am
grounded.

******* tear me apart
Feel me explode
As you tear into my skin

With cross-hairs set on my heart
Teasing out a sharp-shot
Instead you pull the pin

Throwing yourself on me
My saving grace
As we become sacred shrapnel

I'm trying to get back in the flow
of feeling consistently constant
to blow my mind out
back to something cosmic
Made of star stuff
and spangled banners
bellowing my brains out
trying to wrack something
worthy of your attention

You just get so lost in your ego
it's hard to love yourself
before you put the world first
on your shoulders
and let go of
what was dragging you down
barreling passed all the borders
The self imposed prophecies
of invading the privacy
of your broken paranoia
are you even following yourself?

When you get to point
of writing it out
trying to sort out the madness
to make the next step
and process the enlightenment

Someone left the light on
in the attic of Heaven
calling
back to the stars
where they made up stories
of legends

Never play the
“Why would anyone ever want me?” game

When you’re unkind to yourself
You will know no worse
and deserve no better

Like Bukowski says,
Bet on the muse
in those moments of fleeting abandonment

We exterminate the love
we really deserve
and we keeping going back
expecting more

Always at a lack
Like hungry ghosts
in the stair case

Do we dare to dream for something to say?

Or do we keep it inside?
Until we wither
wither
away