How is his life?
     Has he seen the sights?
          And can he sleep at night?

       But does it all feel right?
He's got nothing to compare it to,
     so I guess it might.


There's a closet deep within this monster
and he only opens up when he feels like his father.
He squeezes his knuckles,
     a relief of tension,
but it still just aint enough to drown out the apprehension.
He's made of sticks and stones,
          of broken bones
   and abandoned homes -
open for a tenant
          with nowhere else to go.
But with just a little *****,
          smoke
               and wisdom
he can find the right mood
     to hold a rhythm
not unlike any other stage diver,
               cage fighter
     or rhyme writer.

A means to a loose end
                    to make the world feel lighter.

They stole the night
out from beneath their feet
and replaced it
with endless painted black billboards
with cosmic advertisements
that read: tired of those pesky feelings?
then come on down to the real world
and the stars were switched with
fluorescent bulbs and Christmas lights
the clouds are just moving back drops
and the moon a search light
they stole the day
replaced vibrant blue with
coral blue #64
or baby blue
but mostly gray
they beat ambition with baseball bats
and left it for dead in a ditch
on the side of a high way
they took life
and made it banal
a product
Honey I've shrunk the conversation!
they took the world
and all of it's people
but don't let them
mean you

You don't lead sheep by teaching them how to read and write.
You lead sheep by making them feel insecure about themselves and their own decisions so they look to you for guidance.

I'm losing my mind,
I can't talk to anybody
who isn't a complete stranger
A college dropout
yet nobody knows
big dreams of making it as a writer
inspire and deflate all at once
a lifetime of poverty and rejection and flattened hope
to look forward to,
but I couldn't do it any other way
college was great and all,
only it wasn't
I never felt enriched
just as if I was memorizing facts
and my heart is all messed up
not knowing up from down
and my brain is clear,
cold,
lacking in sympathy
but not in wit
and every waking moment
seems pointless
just doing what I'm supposed to
nobody knows of the double life
I go to "class"
which really means starbucks
so I can write for a few hours
like the king of cliche
and I want to tell people
especially my mother
"school just isn't for me anymore,
the student loan check never came through
because I'm not a student"
but my tongue is tied
locked up
the key thrown away\but I just can't,
I can not,
and I don't know how much longer
I can go on living a lie