I attend college in an apocalypse
I'm planning for a future that doesn't exist
Paying these grandiose establishments
So they can give me a piece of paper
A modern day participation award

it creeps
under your skin
sinking in to the depths of your weary pores
and shrinking
under layers of itchy fabric is the way
your mind believes it will survive

that empty
numbing
cold
has made home in aching bones
and running noses
and brittling skin
and drying lips

my head overflows with a never-ending inundation of thoughts racing through
blurring out reality with their parallax motion
and drowning my ears in doppler

nights seem to pass in a blur
i'm still awake and pleading
come home, my heart

and a twenty years long melody
plays in my mind on repeat
come home, my soul

at 3 am, time moves different
it's the hour of hands-and-knees groveling
come home, my spirit

the words sting on the way down
burn my throat
like tequila without a chaser
and slosh in the belly of my soul

"I don't want you anymore"

awaken the dull ache
salt the wound that never heals
but like rain on a cloudy day
it's a familiar feeling

so tell me
when the lights burn low and the music fades
do you still like who you’ve become?

mama made me
i guess that’s true
but what has she made me do?