This started in 9th grade, when I thought words would be my greatest weapon.
I might have used the language in a way demanding of attention.
Not to languish in introversion but to reach a friend was my intention.
But—with every line I typed—my outlet morphed more into introspection.
If my heart and soul is pad and pen, each verse is meta-style confession.
My fingers blister at their job to bleed my inner-thoughts for pulp infection.
Operation tables shall be my grave should fiction fail my self-dissection.
I just really hope that writing something somehow retcons mild depression.
If I feel better at the end, I think I might call these The Smile Sessions.

I'm lying in bed, listening to everything but Good Vibrations
Convinced that happiness can best be found by seeking new locations
So let's drive around for hours and we'll move across the water
Add some music to my ride so I don't even have to bother
Making conversation, or risk admitting I don't know where I want to go
Then confide I think my future sounds even worse than Kokomo
I'm eating all my vegetables, I'm listening to Do It Again
I'm wondering why the hell anyone would ever stop seeing their friends
But all of them are growing, and I can barely write a poem
It's like the surf is up and I'm the one who left his board at home
I'm feeling so alone and I'm scared of what I dream
Every night I see the people leaving and I want to scream
If I want to Howl, and if Allen Ginsberg died of liver cancer,
And if liquor kills the liver but it also is the answer
To the pain that we all feel when we don't make it as a singer
Or a dancer, or a poet . . . (whatever dream you had that lingers)
But that pain is motivation for the greats to push their art
I think that Brian Wilson's smile shows the sorrow in his heart
I ask of liquor, liver, pain and art: which are villains, which are heroes?
In all of time no final words shall strike a more brutal chord than Nero's.
I've been in this town so long, I may never make my escape
It's always fun, fun, fun to dream of seeing this cage break
I don't hate this place—or these people, and I'm not trying to be mean
If anything I love too much, ask any sweet little sixteen
Ask any surfer girl I've ever met, that faux-love that I express
The tricky lie that I obsess over involving any person in a dress
Less like love, more like a buoy when I'm drowning out at sea
Don't let me drown; if you save me, maybe you can help me leave
You see, I'm always quick to bet the house on any person I think might stick
Around. I scream out, "Help me, Rhonda" when I barely even know the chick
If I'm hurting, than I follow her like a purple-hearted goon
To the edges of my town she draws me out like a cartoon
She will draw me with bold lines if thoughts of bigger worlds will make her swoon
And if one night, she says she hopes the rocket ships are coming soon
So she can blast off right away and live on Mercury sometime next June
That night, I guarantee I dream of skies filled with quicksilver moons.

Wouldn't it be nice? Do you want to dance? Something about California girls?
Come to think of it, maybe there are already enough silly love poems in the world.

I think what gets me most at night is knowing everybody cared
Everybody wanted me to go and face the world prepared
And they still do, and they always will; there are so many whom I love
Those friends and family always trying to give me little shoves
While encouragements are nice, I always plug my ears
Because I'm tired, and I'm bitter, and I barely want to be here
I barely want to write, there's just **** else that I can do
I think this word doc is the last thing I have left that is helping me break through
I think I need an intervention.
There's something I want to say but I keep losing my attention.
And I forgot it, but it was important, so—oh, ****, I'm feeling tension
I hope writing this somehow retcons years of terrible depression
If I feel better at the end, I think I might call these The Smile Sessions.