Bitter
The taste in my mouth is
Bitter
The taste in my mouth is…

A cloud of smoke
Hangs over my head
Reminds me of all,
Of all those things you said

A cloud of smoke
Escapes my lungs
And I want you to choke
On all those things you said

Worthless
The thoughts in my head are
Worthless
The thoughts in my head are…

Circles, staining wood
Rings of coffee, golden-brown
How different am I
From those who once here stood?

Ashes, piles of ashes
Collected in a little glass bowl
Fire burns at my fingertips
And it’s here I feel whole.

There's a looking glass
In front of my face
And I'm Dorian Gray
This ersatz me does so deface
My imperfections
The only thing that makes me
Uniquely debased
Not just a notion
Forward in motion
But the corporeality behind
This simulacrum, not mine alone
The property of the hive mind
The collective consensus reality
Because I'm only as fallible
As everyone lets me be
I smashed the charlatan
With my fist and then
Vain as me it no longer was
Cracked and splintered it sat
Upon the linoleum floor
But still it implored
Smiling, smiling like a villain
Its eyes made contact with mine
And that's all that need be said
"If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me"
As it showed me what I'd never be
This simulacrum, all that you see.

I'm neck deep in stupid
Trying to live up to a halo
That doesn't belong to me

My moral compass points North
No matter where I face
Can't tell my head from my ***

Maybe it's that I need
A brand new pair of horns
Because that's a step somewhere

My head was on the chop block
And but for naught but you
Thanks for letting me die

Oh, but you missed a spot.
Shoot me again because
I'm not quite dead yet

So let me burn in hell
While you dance with the angels
It's not like you give a ****

Ten thousand hungry insects
Consume my flesh alive
And you're sipping champagne

But we got backward the ideas
Of Puritan and Libertine
Of hypocrisy and integrity

So when I'm done with you
The hell I send you to
Will feel like heaven

I'll take solace in the fact
That in the end, with all considered,
I won't be crucified alone.

The rain calls softly from beyond the window
Fingers tapping on glass, persistent
Undaunted at the prospect of rejection

Saxophones serenade and trumpets sound
A color wheel exploding in my mind's eye
The rain was jazz for a moment

White lights create an art in their geometry
With shapes that don't exist
Except in the mind of the beholder

Smoke billows from between my lips
And this world of mine coagulates
It feels so right it almost stings.

Those pools of amber
They see right through
But no, not to view
What's inside me

Rather, I'm a ghost
Fluorescent, luminescent
There's no one sitting
In this chair here

Pass me a beer
But there's no one
Sitting within

Someone not quite
Not exactly what you'd want
Your dreams don't look like me
So **** it

Don't say a word
You don't even need to

I play the guest
In your castle
And though I'm surrounded
There's no one else here

Or at least none
Who can see my face

I turn my layer opacity
Down to zero
And now I'm here
And now I'm not

And no one's here
Who can see my face
Nobody
Nothing
Nobody
No one has a clue

I turn my layer opacity
Down to zero
And no one has a clue
But it doesn't make a difference
No, not to you.

So brush me out
A few clicks here
A few strokes there
That's all you have to do.