the sun is too bright
and the ocean is too vast
and the blood in my veins is thicker than it was on the day i still thought the thunder was an echo of god's laugh

i heard a whisper last night that a gallon of bleach will **** the knots in my stomach,
all tangled up in wild passion
and hopeless despair
and a numbing fear of the void
outside of my boxed up world

i'm sick of all the washed up smirks
from mindless teenagers who think their white smiles and slim waists
will open the world at their feet
and aphrodite herself will bow at their reflection in the river
where the narcissus flower finally leans toward
an image of somebody else

the swing sets in the park are aching
for a child's warming touch
and mothers are bringing bouquets of
flowers to their baby's tombstone instead of wedding,
and families are reading suicide obituaries
instead of making a toast to
love and hope and passion;

boys are in a coma for saying
'i love you'
to a man
and nine year old girls are afraid
to walk through the front door because
of the men who stole their world,
and pieces of green paper hold more
value now than integrity and happiness
ever have;
  
and somehow we still think we're evolving

maybe the clash in the sky reminds us all that we're only human,
that hearts break and lives end
and there's nobody on the moon
filled with the magic of eternity,
and maybe that's the only beautiful
thing about this tragic world:
we're all alone together.

i made a deal with the devil last night:
he'll **** the butterflies in my stomach if i surrender my soul,
but what's the harm in that
when god is no more than
an imaginary friend
and people are made of
more evil than good;  
  i know the fluttering will cease eventually
but how much longer can anybody
expect me to keep breathing
when i'm coughing up broken wings
every time i hit a cigarette

there's a raspy voice in my bed late at night
that whispers into my neck
after the fifth or sixth shot
reminding me of the reasons
we'd all be better off  if
nobody woke up tomorrow morning

i guess that's what happens when
we **** the grass beneath our feet
and still expect it to grow all winter long

this place is bleak and colorless
and life is vacant space
and everything is meaningless  
in this washed out
bleached
world

home is where the heart is,
so maybe if i click this glass to my lips
another three times,
i'll find it

*m.k.

white knuckled pallbearers
for open handed corpses
silent as the pastor
emotionlessly
reads the rehearsed eulogy
i learn that funerals
were never meant
for the dead
they were always meant
for those left alive
because you haven't truly lived
until you've died inside*

[holyoak]