"Hey how have you been?"
Let me think, with a smile,
Just say I am well, let's have a seat.
Here's a real answer, it just may take a while.
Spare me a minute if you could.

I've been selling drugs for six years,
About re-up another two,
I'm at the top of my game,
Minimum wage seems to go up,
I get compensated all the same.
I've been watching my worth diminish,
Another blow to the ego, another questioning why?
Another person asking why I even try.
I've been a hand me down, hand out case
And I'll never go back to that.

One person asking why my wife doesn't work
Another proud that we make that work.
No matter what path you take,
You'll disappoint someone all the same.
If you aren't a player in my life,
Kindly stay out of my lane.
That's no disrespect, I get your intentions,
Your opinion may prove better with wait
But if that's the case, I accept all my mistakes.

Some weeks I feel exhausted,
Some days I pass out in bed,
Most days poetic thoughts flood my head
But I can say I am well
I could say I'm broken, I could say I'm complete
I could fall over and cry
But most days I keep dancing to a beat
Even when it's been 12 hours on my feet
Call me anything but I'll never be weak.
I can feel it all simultaneously and all be true
But I guess that's enough about me,
How are you?

Remember when you would grab your favorite record?
The snaps and pops as the music would start,
Jumping up and down on the floor,
The dancing made the record hop,
Those scratches made the record stick
With that 45 adapter to capture that one song
That kept you spinning, spinning until gone.

Remember that cassette in your car
Over played to a point of obsession,
The tape would squeal to teach you that lesson.
The tape would unwind at the worst time.
Like a surgeon you grab a pencil
Spin it around until every piece of film
Hits the reel back into place.

Remember the CD you played,
Laying down in your bed
Did you look up at the ceiling?
I looked through the artwork instead.
Scratches only came while carrying it through life
Until something new comes into light.

I'm listening to these files,
Dragged and dropped to device
Every song sounds flawless,
Every song in lossless flac
But to let that original record keep spinning
I'd give it all back.

I wanted to write a masterpiece
Here's a page of my life,
What do you think of this?
Nobody is asking to read more
But if I didn't have these paper sheets
I don't think I'd be living anymore.
Here's the time I almost choked and died,
Ate the wrong thing and saw flat lines
And although I've written about it before,
Sometimes it feels like a war
So I write it again to pull that fear from my core.

I wanted to write a masterpiece
So my father might say he's proud
I spent my whole childhood working for it.
As an adult he gave me that line
And all i could feel was that he wasn't allowed.
My mother told me she was proud
And I felt like I was on skyscraper,
But when you're on top you can only go down.
No one ever speaks of your success
Until you're back broken on the ground.

I wanted to write a masterpiece
So here's 500 times I felt low
Here's another 500 I was able to grow
Here's every piece of life I've known.
Here's a masterpiece, I'll light it in flames
I'm just a human born to be lame
So keep the trophy I just wanted to play the game.
Get off that bench and quit the team,
We are all born from that same cloth
But I'm ready to rip the seams.

I wanted to be a masterpiece,
Not just a simple piece or a pawn
I want to be a masterpiece
Before they take me out and I'm gone.

We all wander, don't bother.
I don't need direction, don't need the answer.
Stop staring with question, I'm not a lesson.
I go through life without a plan B
Yet if you notice my limbs,
You may not know how I'm standing.
Jumping from feats like a legless cat,
I just pray that I'm landing.
If this map doesn't work out,
Then I'm just another dream they were right to doubt.

Ignore me, come on, abuse me.
My body is ready for another internal bruising.
You want to conjure memories
I'll blast off with super Saiyan energy
Push me with every bone and muscle,
I'm a poet, I don't need to go and tussle
I'll pound you down with leaded ground
You won't see the shots I rapidly land
Just know my power level is over nine thousand.

I've got scars I forgot existed,
The kind people hear in defensive laugh.
The kind if given a similar treatment, deployed.
I'll line up every shot for you, destroyed
Don't apologise, I've swatted bigger webs of lies.
I never hold a grudge and never have tried
But I'd rather see you crucified.

I remember slow nights
Sitting up on Daly Hill
Where the air always felt a bit colder
Across my skin leaving chills.
I would lay down looking up,
The stars would lay up looking down
No people, just all the nature
Stirring from the trees around.
Just a kid with a notebook,
Just a kid with a dream,
Waiting for life to enter the scene.

I wasn't looking for answers there,
I lacked the knowledge of questions to ask.
But life only leaves you wondering
When time has already past.
If I could paint it out as a picture,
I wouldn't and can't.
You just have to be there,
In a place where the world feels still
Looking over nothing, up on Daly Hill.

Too Much Caffeine in the Poetry

My brain feels spun,
The other kids are having fun.
I'm not sure what direction I'm on.
Should I be playing, slaying, laying down
I don't let the ground hold me up.
I sip apple juice from a Lego cup
Then let my thoughts erupt.
Blow off my mind, it's dusty
But I'll be a quick spitter like Rusty
The pinch hitter who lost the game
Still dancing all the same.
Oh and you just lost the game.

I'm sorry, I'm not sorry.
The engines are not starting,
The cylinders should be firing
Though now expiring, into nothing.
It's not snow, it's just a dusting.
I have a two, a five, a seven, jack and queen,
In other words, I am absolutely bluffing.
The suit does not match the shoes that
I wore to score a date too late.
Miss Cinderella it's half past eight
And those glass shoes are positively fake.

Today I wrote nothing,
Mistrusted my hand to stand on it's own
But Mr. Right, I was wrong.
You need to leave the page alone.
Today, I drank a drink that made me think
I'd never stop the twitching hop
My mind had surely bled
And left this mess before I went to bed.

I never thought I'd be one to be growing old
I've got a wife and a kid,
A younger me would have never known.
Instead I'm grieving some friends
Who never got the the chance to grow.
I use to think I could smell my grave,
Now I'm some backwards slave
Chained up in survivor's guilt
Like playing a lottery of life
Survive long enough to watch them die
Or die too quick to really live.

If I should cough and choke,
I hope they burn me off in colored smoke
Because even in dark, I hope they see light.
I made my mark in lead,
Through words slipping out of my head.
Like I had a choice?
They make me push that voice
And share it in the dead of night
Where the skeletons shuffle through
Then awaken myself into anew.

They won't know my name until I go,
Won't understand the words I'd sew.
Treated with kindness when gone,
Treated with scrutiny when alive,
It's like standing on a highdive
All silence until you crash,
Then it's all laughter and cheer.
But why don't we appreciate the day it's here?
I'm sure that answer will become clear.