i want everything to be the way it was.
i want to pretend again-
that your eyes didn't sing to me each time they met mine,
and maybe then- it would have gone away naturally.
i want to pretend that it didn't **** me that you chose to put away your pride to belong to someone who has never seen your light.
and pretend the light wasn't just a reflection of the person I wanted to see in you.
i'll pretend that the things I watched you do weren't purely just your fingers pulling on the strings of the hearts of those who chose to see only that beauty in your smile.
and i'll pretend that i haven't thought about you every day for the past four years- wondering what reckless thing you'll do to your soul next.
and that every time you got sick, I wasn't worrying about whether i should step in to help you because I didn't want to cross any unspoken boundaries.
i want to pretend that he didn't look at me like a bomb threat- and that the things he did were not pure evil.
i want to pretend that you thought of me as family, and that you treated me as so.
i want to pretend that i truly mattered to you. not only when it was late at night and you were thinking of putting yourself in harms way
and not only when he wasn't treating you like the goddess I believed you to be.
i want to hug you, and pretend that i feel warmth in your embrace.
i want to see you, but i never want to look into those eyes again.
no, never again..
because instead of enjoying the melodies I once heard
i'll be revisiting memories of sounds that once made me sway.

trust the trying temples.

there is a girl
choking on her own *****-
i think she may have
gotten it on her halo.

i gaze at the
dark eyes staring back at me
in the mirror here
and try to see something nice.

"try again" she
grumbles and then tiptoes back
to her death bed
and again, gorges herself.

I am weeping for the trees
And for the grass, and for the flowers.
I am weeping for the souls
And the soulless, and the soulful.

When I tune my brain correctly
All I can feel is deep, throbbing, horrid pain.
And I wonder if anyone could feel the pain I feel,
Would they weep with me?

I feel the pain of the animals in the plants,
I feel their blood-curdling screams looping
Over and over until it's all I can hear.
I feel the abuse and depression in every creature  who knows they will be violently slaughtered.

I feel the pain of mother nature.
She is asking, "why do you destroy the gifts I have given you?"
She is crying, "nobody is listening to my warnings,
The droughts, the storms, the disasters"

I feel the pain of human beings
I feel the pain they know not yet that they feel.
That each and every one of them is enslaved, bred, and controlled.
Maybe we aren't so different from the cattle on our plate.

I feel the pain of the creatures in the ocean
Who are lucky if they don't ingest poison early on in their lifetime,
Who are lucky if they don't get caught in plastic
Or in a net, to suddenly-slowly dehydrate and die.

I feel, mostly the pain of our creator,
Who goes by many different names.
That they created us to learn and grow, and love, and spread love
Yet, all anyone can focus on is their own gain.

I am weeping for the world
Because the weight is pushing down on me.
I am weeping for the souls
Who are overwhelmed by the pain and cry with me.

But don't tell anybody.

I asked some customers today,
How do you spell Berenstein?

I asked a co-worker today,
"Do you feel like your interpretation
of reality
Has been corrupted?"

But he didn't get it.
He said, "no, but you've definitely shaken it."

"Not today" I said.
"I mean- today, but every other day as well."

Silence.

Why doesn't anybody hear me
As well as they hear Britney?

Is defeated by
An all knowing mind