I give, I give, and I taketh away.
I’m left with nothing at the end of the day.

I’m left speechless, you’ll give speeches
But I’ll be far away.
The frustration lies within.
I hear your voice in my head
Screaming,
“******* live better.”
I’d be better off Red.
At least I’d live happy, margins well below.
But you wouldn’t let me,
You’d have nothing to show.

Leave your fears at the door,
Young child.
The winter wind sweeps close.
If you are not careful,
The frostbite will get your nose.

I’m empty; I’m flawless
I need more than this.
I can’t be me, and what you want at the same time.
I guess ignorance is bliss.

Etches in the ***** mirror, like ghost across the skies.
draw hopeful words in steam from all my weakened sighs
The morning brings bravery to meet the darkness with defiance
but night fills my heart with longing and the slightest stroke of violence.
The eyes in front of me,
reflections of what I want to be
aren't the eyes I actually see
the purest form of what is me.
Wrinkles pouring 'cross my face
meet the stretch marks of wasted space.
I check the clock.
My bank account.
The scale.
Numerical definitions of what I have and what I don't.
But I cannot check my happiness to see if I am overdue.
No check on Friday will fill my heart... which has been overdrawn.
How to measure the strength of soul, before the vault is all but gone...
The etches in the mirror say
"Tomorrow is another day." while advertisements of existence blur my vision.
They tell me this is life.
They tell me work your job. Pay your bills. Accept your place.
But I have slowly learned that I will never agree.  
What will I do when words run out and I am left with an empty wallet, an empty mind, an empty heart?
Let me body decay before my strength does.
Let the words stay etched in my mind.
Tomorrow is another day

"Just remember the last password,"
Passing out over dog turds
As they flush out their ***** soaked linens.

A second away, a crusader she stays,
letting men and women, alike, hit rock bottom.
Her hair properly coiffed,
Her apron in a knot,
tied neatly, behind her back.
She waters the garden,
begs for no pardons
and awaits the hose to lose its slack.

Hollow bodies all toil in compassion for something they truly want,
but we speak as if the truth were individual, subjective; there's no line in the sand into what's bad unless everyone agrees.

Who's really wrong? What's really wrong?

Can we ever hope to draw a lion?
I ****** up a serious tone with a joke.

"I ****** THE FIDDLY-WIDGET!"

You scream down a naked hallway.
They wear no clothes, you know.
Unabashed knaves.

It's two in the morning,
And nothing glimmers with any sort of light.

The ceiling lamp is buzzing its way into oblivion, and my computer screen won't stop screaming my face off as words continue to recreate themselves all over this paperwork I like to call poetry.

There are clothes on the floor.
A lump that literally states "I'm a bachelor with no tastes";
All my clean clothes are unfolded.

I take time for ******* pageantry, as if video games, film, and other likewise media are my lasting friends.

"Look at me,
I know so much!"
He kindly curtseys to the judge
as he skips away so gayly.

An "Always Sunny" Marathon, at my place maybe?
He says like a Jewish Decapodian, scarfing down some bay leaf.
Just kidding, I'm way too poor for that.

I'm supposed to have my **** together;
I'm supposed to buy a house!
I scream, I rant, I rave, I shout!
Until another stupid ******* ***** me a good one,
Right on the mouth.

I mumble for weeks; I continue on.
Let us all sing, again, the soldier's song:

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'

Oh God, what have you done?
Brought politics into a world that had none?
Forever tainted this bill of mine,
For it's possible that it 'twas not designed
for a working world,
for a human social structure,
for a being who's supposed to be good.

We get a mockery each time,
Spit dereliction, each line.

It's been a long time since I ****** with a pen.
Told my lady tonight something I just can't forget:
If you really love something, at least do it on the side.

So welcome me back, O wordsmith, if you would delight.

If not, fade me to alignment of some other greater ill,
fate me worse none, than one thought, but I will still keep a bill
of every broken, ****** up, and beautiful thing that I've been given,
and I'll still want to turn that **** into a living.