we tell our children
never to tell a lie
but that's all we feed them
and they'll be fed til they die
because the truth's too painful
when you find it in yourself
and even harder to put down
when it's come down off a shelf
in a bottle
in a lighter
in a song
in the freezer
under the steps
under your feet
under your head
and in your sleep.
you'll find it anywhere, once you admit that it's what's killing you.

out of sorts
and sorted out;
in senses of shorts
and shorted for love.

caught in life
as i fell to death
to be caught stealing
your heart and your head
from the skin you'd held them in.
now they're caught up in me
and they're catching on;
i'm hardly thinking,
bleeding, and breathing.
i'm living.  imbalanced.

caught in the burning of somethings you'd owned
in your masochistic daze you're loved by none
and you're loved by the only thing that's ever mattered
the incessant beatings you'd taken by yourself;
for yourself, you let them go on, like you couldn't stop
and now you're just lighting your whole life on fire
and lighting the way to an early grave, enslaved
by the nicotine staining your fingers, draining your lungs
of sweet, succulent oxygen, openly displaced by carbon monoxide
and yet there's only blackening and death on the inside.

this has to be cut-out or you're just going to end up on another page; immortalized for your love of something choking you to death; deadened from the disease you couldn't ****.

i'd go back to sleep
just to dream some more
and wake up in the morning
a little extra sore
from the tossing and turning
that went on the night before
but when i'm dreaming
i'm lost inside my own core
and i feel the sights i've heard of
as if they weren't just folk lore
and i hear the feelings i've seen
exhibited on your front door
and i see the sounds you're emanating
coming through the floor
as you wake up yourself
in the afternoon around quarter til four
you find i'm not here
i'm just dreaming anymore.

you've cut up your past
into tiny fragments
for the detailing of a future
that's now your assignment.
something you're figuring out
that isn't so predictable,
when your entire life
all your guesses were ridiculed.
as they fit together
to form something new
you're seeing there's still some bits
that feel like they're missing you.
to amend this situation,
you pick up the phone
and make a few calls
and see how things have been at home.
but nobody's answering
and nobody's calling back
i've figured it's better to live life
than to ever want to lack
love.
it's a feeling
and soon it's healing
but the scars exist
and you can't resist
the facts of life you've realized, you're realizing, and have yet to have this grand realization that nothing's perfect.
*perfection was a theory they never perfected.

shine on, you perplexed ruby red light; shined on for your years of ambiance, and now the shine's seemingly dulled.
as the illuminated street signs show you the way out of your own head and into the house where you'd rather sleep all day than clean, read or create; illustriousness never held much of a hold on the mind you've let burn into a pile of carbonated waste.
in the silence you've surrounded yourself in, you've found that there's too much going on in your own head for anything to ever be quiet, so you scream.
as the death of another loved one fills your heart with sorrow and pain, there seems to be a new reason to figure this one out on your own; there was nothing you'd missed over the years, but you've always seemed to ignore the social ques and questions you knew felt needed left unanswered.

in light, there is darkness.  and in darkness there is light.  it's all a matter of perspective.

sooner or later you'll find out your thoughts are a sin:

                        drugged and lugged through the halls you're living in
                        until you've accepted their embracing concepts
                        and their defacing analysis of your character; you're dead.
                        their pale, fluorescent lights hum in your head
                        and clean out the cobwebs that you've let build up
                        until you've been completely cleansed of your transgressions
                        and until you've figured out life's not about progression.

sooner or later you'll find out you're life's been overanalyzed:

                        created for the sake of boredom and then criticized
                        by yourself, your peers, and the people who you never knew;
                        they'd never known, not even yourself, but you guessed.
                        there was no reason to make an estimate, you're blessed
                        through your admission of self, sanctity, and painful denial
                        of the truths they'd tried to make you disbelieve;
                        now you're ready, you're certain, and soon, you'll be freed.