All I have are fraying nerves
and pleasant whispered lies.
I'm made of potential squandered
and unaknowledged regrets
swimming just below a calm surface
of ******* I just haven't said yet.
And I'll ask you, in pretend passing,
to consider my debts squared
and my intentions over my actions
but I'm not really to be trusted
you just didn't have anyone to warn you.

Break me like a promise
keep me like an oath
love me like a faith
and mourn me like a ghost.

I know the problem has always,
always, always been me
but I've blinded myself to growth
by wallowing long in misery.
I'll say I need a light to guide me
but I'll ignore the lighted path
because I don't want to be better
I just want to be excused from the math.

I know I'm hard to live with
and I never apologize
I know my fictions don't fix
what I always vandalize.
I know that knowing isn't
efforts made to correct.
I know you'll hope for things
that you'll just never get.

I know the road to take
to change into a better man
but I'll never step foot on it
even though we both know I can.
You can lay bricks to build a foundation
on which to finally build it all
but I lay bricks just as easy
to put up a great big wall.

We're all dying,
some just a little
faster than others
and we all wanna know
we mattered to our
sisters and our brothers
because we're short
on time and long
on meaning
with tarnished souls
and empty hearts and
minds that need cleaning.
We talk about legacy
while we struggle
from day to day
but we leave aside our
value when we refuse
to stand and play
these forever games
of trying to find the
hard and honest truth
before it's far too late
before we've gotten just
a little too long in the tooth
And still it isn't over
not by a long shot
and certainly not yet
because they'll never let
it finish before we
pay our outstanding debt.
I do not know if I'll
be here tomorrow to
guide you on the way
because tomorrow is
a foreign land and all
we ever have is today.

I will guide you like
a pencil across the smooth
face of blank paper
or brush on canvas
to define the shape of you
from abstract nothingness.
I will chip away at marble
slabs and whittle logs
of chopped wood until
I've revealed you.
I will bend words until
meaning is clear and the
simple prose of you
will speak honesty.
I compose on sheets
and instruments until
the sweet song of you can
be sung proud from chorus
to substantive verse.
I will labor, young one
to put only what is needed
of myself into the work
that is you so that you'll
be built a better man
than I ever was.
Until the art is complete
I'll labor tirelessly.
One day you'll be unveiled
and I hope you'll be ready
because you will have to
stand tall before a world
that will yet, I swear it,
learn to admire you.

Let's build a man, whole cloth
but let's build him wrong.
Let's make him distant and cold
give him lyrics but no song.
Let's curse him with gifts
take his hands and give them art
but leave out his ambition
so he'll never know how to start.
We'll wire his brain backwards
so he'll have the capcity to deduce
but let's not include every *****
so his sanity is always loose.
And what if we give him
outrageous faith in the wrong places.
Have him be confident in failure
when he looks at disappointed faces.
And just for a lark, what if we
made him concious of these facts.
Gave him awareness of deficiencies
so he'll understand all that he lacks.

I just want to say something real,
that lasts beyond my time.
I wanna know I mattered
before the number called is mine.
It may not matter that I tried
it might be futile to do my best,
and I'm not asking for accolade.
No need for Glottaman's rest.
And listen: I know it doesn't
matter, that it's all random chance.
I know that music only plays
until the end of the dance.
But if you could know
what comes after your fall
would any of that change
anything you do, even at all?
All stories end, all books conclude
and we don't always know when
and if we're lucky the mark stays
in the middle for as long as it can.
One day its over and every tomorrow
becomes one dreamless, endless night
there are more pages behind the mark
and the ending is already in sight.

I want to write about the ocean
but only ever manage
verse after verse about fire.
I want to sing about hope
but always belt out choruses
filled with unfufilled desire.
I want to listen to the falling rain
but get so ******* distracted
by all the miserable daily pain,
And I don't know what'll fix it
I'm only ever a moment of falling
away from going totally insane.
I want you to know, I believe
even if it would appear I
only really know how to grieve,
I want you to miss me
and ask me seriously
when I go not to leave.
Because, I don't want to fight
it's like I can see just fine
but haven't got any sight.
Give me a spark, love, light up the night
and I'll drown it in an honest
desire to get just one ******* thing right.
.

The boat gently rocks
in time with the gentle
lapping against the hull
of the waves in the
ocean of abandoned
things in which I find
myself adrift.
I've no oar or rudder
and the sun beats down
on my uncovered head
and I'm so thirsty I cannot
drink and so hungry that
the idea of food makes me
dry heave and the steady
purposeful movement of
the raft slows my mind
and makes my bones weary
and I wonder, often and
for exceedingly long stretches
of time, if you've noticed
that I've gone.
Does it matter at all that
my lips are cracked but no
longer contain blood to bleed
or even that my monotone reaponses
have stop sounding from
the room adjacent to the one
you shout questions you've
long ago had the answers to?
Does it matter at all that
the ocean is vast and I'm
without sextant or stars
by which to find you or that
the chorus of pleasant sounding
compliments you've requested
my presence be has become
silence and void in place of me?
I'm waiting for rescue on this
sea that I've found myself in
and couching decades of pain
about your wishing I'd never
been born to my childhood face
in thin metaphor because
to tell the truth would destroy you
and only one of us has ever
had to suffer these waters
and why not just let it be me?
Navigating your sea has taught me
that suffering proves you care
and if I suffer enough you may
glance at my absence and
notice that I am not there.