Give me a break
Just what can I do
When every thought and action
Stems directly from you

Get out of my head
I can't stand the doubts
I wish you were dead
I'm better off without

You
I know it
And you know it too

If only I had never, ever met you
Then this would be nothing
I'd be safe and sound
Living alone
Probably dead by now

Because I never could stand it
And you stand so proud
Jealousy, admiration, hope, and oh wow
No wonder I'm drowning
No wonder I've drowned
When this is my reaction to treasure I've found

Stay in the sand
I'll bury you again
I'm not your family
I'm not your friend
I'm just a man counting down to the end
12, 6, 7, 8, 9, and then 10

"If you're the least bit sensitive, this world will eat you alive."
Is it any wonder then that so many of us want to die?
But I gave up a long time ago on suicide
Such an ignoble way to say goodbye

So if I must go, I want to be beaten by some ******* while defending a woman's honor
Shot by an oppressive father for attempting to liberate his daughter
Gunned down by the government for standing up for the rights of another
I guess you could say,
I have dreams of becoming a martyr

"Only the good die young"
Only through self-sacrifice can you become
Deeply ingrained in humanities' collective brain
I want to make a difference
Before I grow old and insane

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Lincoln
JFK
Jesus Christ
Gandhi
Joan of Arc
Tecumseh
And then there's Socrates

Somebody help me, help me please
I want so badly to die for the sake of a belief
But it's all so ****** up now
Twisted and torn
Sometimes I wish that I was never born

And there have been others who felt the same way
Vincent Van Gogh
Rothko
And Hemingway

I know it's not fair of me to say
They all lead lives wrought with such pain

Like Bradley Nowell
And Kurt Cobain
Some saw it coming
Like Mark Twain

Freedom really is a double-edged sword
After Jack Parsons blew up he left us his words
His mom OD'd shortly after having heard
Greatness can only last so long in this world

And what of Albert Camus?
Was it really unplanned?
And that poor old Nietzsche
Came so unglued at the end

And fate is really something
How can we comprehend
Some lives are surely doomed
From the moment they begin

A dynamic life
That's what I've always wanted
And it seems to be what I've ended up with
It's such a thing to look back and see how far I've come from where I was
I needed to believe in progress

When I was younger
And learned about Siddhartha
I became so inspired
I finally knew what to go after

Enlightenment
The cure to these insufferable thoughts
Some sort of consistency between what was real and what was not
No one ever told me about the side effects

Nietzsche was always after me
Plato trying desperately to show me the trees
Capitalism challenging me to determine the difference between what I want and what I need

The side effects:
I couldn't tell the difference from one person to the next
The opposite of dynamic is static
I've grown numb by the shock of every time I encounter it

How can you be so dense?
How can you not see?
There's very little difference between you and me

Sometimes I feel mad
I get so angry
The side effect of pursuing enlightenment
Is insanity

Meeting someone,
someone that strikes my fancy,
I take my soul out of my pocket--
expecting them to do the same.

My soul,
like origami that has been folded and refolded,
is worn at the edges and moth eaten,
has burns and scorch marks,
alcohol and coffee stains,
greasy finger prints,
smudge marks,
and small bits torn from it…

Together-- there on the street,
we compare souls on the corners of the world.
Some souls are almost new--
starched and pressed,
in a vacuum sealed bag.

Others, when taken out,
are even more used up than mine--
some break and blow apart in the wind
like glowing confetti,
leaving a dull grey stare in its owner’s pale eyes.

Then after we have compared souls
I fold mine back into its origami balloon shape
and put it back
in my pocket.

Souls are not a different distant object
they do not fit in a lock box.
Every act of compassion…
or apathy,
hunger…
or gluttony,
love…
or ****,
The mundane…
or the extraordinaire
creates a new mark,
a new fold,
a different shape,
a different you….

...than existed just a moment before.

Outside my window I count
Three shadows.
Twelve legs.
Grazing.

Up here we call the elk
The King of the Woods.
[Antlers the width of your widescreen;
As convincing a crown as any].

When they run past the house
The crystal shakes in
The cupboard.
The cat breaks records up trees.

I am a man.
I am merely a man.
I will never own the night.

Hide in obscurity.
Cryptic visage.
Anonymous shimmer.
Arcane mirage.

Be the enigma.
Wear the unknown.
Always a question mark.
Forever alone.

I can be an angry man.
Dead things that won't do as I wish
Tend to break.

Leaving behind a wake of
Fractured drywall and
Nervous cats,
Band-aided knuckles and
Bared bone,
I scare others. Hurt myself.

It's a family curse.
Our men are fiercely fuelled, have
Little patience for slow movers,
Rude tones, spite.
Grenades of muscle and noise
That explode in the faces of
Disrespect, then stand
Alone in craters
And regret.

Thank the gods we love with the same
Intensity.

Do this, do that, once consumed my mind.
Be anxious for nothing, to this I was blind.