May the power protect you
Because I pity the foo’
Who doesn’t freak out
When they hear, “Transform and roll out.”
It’s your move creep
Just another body on the heap
The power is yours
To understand that this nerd is *******
What I call Beast Mode
Is a transformation access code
I’ll generate way more than 1.21 gigawatts
Till I make your mind rot
Now, don’t you slack
Cause you know, I’ll be back

Here comes this serial killer looking creep
Thinking he's here for just a little peep
He just a little whacked out manic
Energy spurts come in an inconsistent panic
But I promise I'm an all right dude
Even though I act a little rude, but crude
I'm the leader who takes apart machines
Been my own man since I was fourteen
He's the maniac creator
Makes all the world his theater
In his head lives every world
Swirling around in a surrealist twirl
He's a trash picking racoon
Looking like a tin foil hat loon
Now here I go making another promise
I'm a monstrosity Frankenstein colossus
I build dreams out of your waste
Assembling beauty with a fever pitch haste
Don't ever doubt what I say
Even if it sounds preposterous and risque
I make some of the weirdest things
Meant to illicit grins from my deepest sins

Every time I close my eyes I watch a 1000 tragedies pass before them
This is the curse of those with the unimaginable imagination
Every worry
Every doubt
Every fear for everyone I have ever loved
Becomes a full-length movie
I am forced to watch
Every time I try to rest or close my eyes or even think
Every time I am arguing and screaming and yelling against these imagined worlds
I have to repeat the mantra:

It's not real
This is not real

I have to force myself  into cognitive lucid day dreaming
Some new framework from someone else's fantasy
That's happy
Where people love me and care
Then I wake up
I sit alone at home every night hoping I don't wake up from this dream
That these worlds can be real
But I know
One day the ones I fear most
Will be real

Hold On!
Take a breathe

It's not real
It's not real
It's just a story
Aren't we all stories?

Are you ok?
No, I'm not
But its none on your concern
Leave me alone
I'm always alone
No matter who's here

I have been so scarred by those who claim to love me
That I do not believe anything they say
Only when I see them actually act.
But, if I have to tell them that
Then I am forcing them into showing they care
Then, do they really?
Or do they feel obligated?
I don't care for those I do,
because I have to,
because I'm required to
I do not expect something in return
But I want it SO badly

And the problem is
that if I tell them this
It becomes about me
And this is not about me
I'm a parent
My life stopped being mine when he was born
But what about ME?

You should just let sleeping bears lie
Because this one can't sleep alone at night anymore
With his head so crowded with worlds full of travesty

I am so ******* angry all the time
At myself for letting myself feel this way
For needing someone else

I can't
I just can't anymore.

But I still do
I'm tethered to a web of fake memories and sins I know are not real

It's not real
It's not real

It's a ghost story that haunts
but with no substance
no form
no unfinished business
no one ever conducts ANY actual business

I am alone in the light of day
At night the endless voices scream out in silence

It is better for me to ignore you
than to unleash what I keep trapped inside
I care too much
For you to have to face that monster
Staying away is protecting you
If I ever let out what's in there
It will destroy you

It's the mask I wear so I don't crack into a million pieces
And take all of my worlds with me

STOP
You can stop right there
Forward stop having meaning years ago
When you lied to me and said, "I love you"
You actually want to show you care
You're going to have to try harder
And if the effort isn't there
Then your actions will speak for you
What you say
No longer does

I scream, WHY!" in chorus with my radio
WHY?
I don't know if it makes me feel better or worse
Why do I feel this way?

It's not real
It's not real

What world am I in?
Is this one real?
Where do I exist?
Do I exist?

When my Dad goes there will be no great inheritance
No money, no cars, no great property
Just some old t-shirts and shoes
That both me and my brother will fit
He gave us everything he had while he was alive
Until that was the last thing he had to give
My kid already has his inheritance
As my father did,
When I am gone, what I have given him will only be worth what we have given it.

My babysitter used to the sell the leftover bad parts of her **** to her classmates at Lake Catholic
Paying for her stash by separating the junk
And selling it to spoiled rich girls who didn't know better
She was only part of this upper crust because of her Dad's insurance settlement
When a security guard high on drugs beat him

It is this irony that runs through my head, when she exclaimed, "I thought you were gay," when she found out I was married.
When I still was.

Where I grew up
Everyone spent their Saturday's in bars
And Sundays in church
I spent weekend working the latter
And thoroughly avoiding the former
I weaved through them
Never feeling part of anyone
Merely taking what I needed from them
Yearning to earn enough
To get away
Get better
Get on
There are days I miss
the invisibility of being part of something
You were never part of
I never found my place
I built my own
And no one ever wanted to come in
I work my bar alone
And worship only myself

Assembled anonymously at Ingenuity Neighbor Nights July 15, 2021, Cleveland, OH

I will force you to know me,
And force you harder to know yourself

Gathering together
Dancing
Laughing
Loving
Is what it means to be truly human

I have rode, climbed, and conquered.
I have stood still.
I jumped in.
I have fallen and been defeated.

Hung over a toilet, the next day
Steve vows to change his ways

My feet ache.
My back aches.
My heart aches.
from this over time

The snow is over for the season, perhaps