i don't even like you.
(i want to be just like you.)
i don't want to participate in your humiliation ritual
(i'm sick of being the sacrifice. spread someone else's ribs on the gym floor.)
**** conformity.
(i study every movement and take it for myself.)
**** conformity.
(i want to be just like you.)
**** conformity.
(can i wear your skin?)
don't come near me.
(i want proximity and brotherhood like a sick second hunger.)
please go away.
(please hit me without being afraid of hurting me. with all the tender force of brotherhood.)
i don't talk to him.
(look at me, look at me, look at me, please.)
i'm not good at sports.
(i work so hard and still come up short.)
don't hurt me.
(hurt me like a brother would. i am sick of you walking blood through the hall from the eggshells you walk on. i am not so fragile.)
i can smell the axe body spray.
(hit me like you know i can take it.)
please, no.
(i wish.)

what else are you supposed to do in the suburbs?
find everything abandoned and go there at night?
thrift shop?
idle around the same mall and buy candles, journals, CDs (for your lack of cd player, except in your mom's car)?
see the same movie twice (the fire alarm goes off both times)?
throw wine bottles at pavement and watch the glass splinter?
run around empty ovals?
break into baseball fields?
go to the same public pool and open your eyes underwater?
burn lacy lingerie that you stole from the mall and watch as your femininity sticks, shrivelled, to the pavement?
go to school and get the bus home?
go to work and come home covered in pizza sauce?
hate it till you leave?
what else even is there?

i'm wasting my youth not throwing punches
i'm wasting away with every apology
i'm trying so hard to be scary
but I'm worried it'll make you scared of me

because teenagers are the meanest people on the planet
because i wanna be like richard silken
was richard silken a loser in highschool?
surely he was
no poet escapes ridicule and most of us deserve what we get
because i’m angry and no one except my parents beleive me
because man up man up man up
because i want to throw my guts up onto the pavement
because everything is so beautiful but none of it is real
because i wanna be like richard silken
and take this anger and make it meaningful

i confess you like a sin
my friends are getting sick of it
and i'm quoting you like Byron
and i’m just getting sick
like a song in my head
if god existed
like a bruise on my neck
we would have discussed it
so I just quote you again
and it's still obsolete
cause Byron's got nothing
and I'm doomed to repeat it

i’d describe the way the sun feels on my face if i knew i could do it justice. its late autumn and the bus came directly on the minute. i hate orange but i couldn’t look at the sun and then tell you that. bless the city and bless the trees but bless suburbia most of all. suburbia is like a teenage boy who doesn’t try, is effortless in hs perfect face (perfect teeth, perfect soul, perfect mouth). he’s my favourite and he smiles when i walk into class. his hair is orange this time of year. i’ve never told him i hate orange because i don’t hate it on him. autumn peels the hot wax of summer off and my skin sings with the fresh air.

spring in suburbia comes reeling around
with the circuit of movies I watch in my head
sun means 'stand by me'
sun means I feel alive again
spring slips its wings down my throat
and I'm outside and it's not raining
I want to go to parties
And I'm graduating sooner than I thought
I hope the younger years find the crawlspace
above the stage in the hall
I hope they find my graffiti
I hope they feel spring too
and all their favourite movies come circling back
something like new beginnings
yeah something like that