we're all lost here
we're all mad here
we're all tired here
we're all here
until one day , we disappear
be patient
wait your turn
sell your soul and watch it burn
soon you'll learn
be patient
wait your turn
we're all lost here
we're all mad here
we're all tired here
we are all not here

Soft padded sheets with a chalk-white fade
Contours from repeated pressure illustrating a familiar shape

Indented rivets in the overused cushion where you tried to hide
Red-turned-brown spots dried, markers of where you failed to keep it inside
Timid stains of salty moisture once fallen from your eyes
Now just a faded gravestone to the bliss simplicity brought before your fight died

Deaf ears and the pleas that pass through their shallow halls
But the sound changes octaves as it bounces off the thin beige walls
And so it echoes unheard as it falls
One too many close calls to accept the sound that emulates from it all

Trembling bones under heavy skin clutching the bed-frame with an iron grip
Second only to the pressure your upper teeth have on your lower lip

Revolving doors unhinged, flooding your thoughts as they race
Tired eyes stay bolted open, not recognizing the shape of your own face
in the jagged glass that now lays fractured and stained from the image you tried to replace
But it still didn't go away
“This is it,” you say

Cavernous holes,
Once whole,
Now just hollow shells you used to call home
Empty of all heart and all hope

And you brace for the hit, the moment where it finally all goes black
And the silence will finally answer back,
telling you you've ****** it up, it's all rotted through, you didn't fight hard enough and now you're done

And every single time you're still surprised when that moment never comes
And despite the tremors and daggers, your stubborn heart carries on

So find the narrow sliver of air where reality and your mind meet
And take in all the oxygen like it isn’t always free
There isn’t much too it,
You just put your head down and breathe

Because if there’s only one thing of which you can be sure
It's that these souls were designed to endure

And "this too shall pass" will become true once more

Let your heart and its resting pace made amends
Once the shaking stops you can finally stand
And wear that smile until courage finds you again

Somewhere inside you always knew this isn’t how it ends.

You were a sold out music hall
And I was just a record on your wall

And I'd turn and turn and hope that you would sing along
While you played symphonies for us all

Intellect without emotion, someone told me once. That's how they described me.  That I had more wit and sarcastic charm than I could ever need, and yet I  couldn't do anything meaningful with it because I lacked anything real…..like empathy, selflessness…or love.  I was the cleverest robot in the world.

The truth is I do have emotion. Bounds of it.  It pours out of me through cracks I forgot to seal when I walled myself in.  And any attempt it makes to grow a garden is flooded by preemptive rain clouds, conjured up by a self imposed reality wherein the world sees my face in the daylight for what it really is and burns down my garden anyway.

I am no robot, I just hide behind cold metal plates and careful calculations, as if I could possibly predict consequences to chances I never take, moves I never make, and broken down walls I never break. So that the outcome is that i'm the loneliest, cleverest robot in the world, who discarded his humanity for a safety net and a bottle of cheap thrills, a bottle he uses as a telescope to see the rest of world because it looks better through the glass.

There are still bad days.

Days where it’s easy to forget that a world exists outside my bedroom.

Days where the moments in-between each breath feel like an unmapped ocean and no one’s really sure if there’s land on the other side.

Days where I’m not sure if there will be other days.

Days where the calendar smiles coldly and says, “yeah, you wish.”

Days where I’m not always able to keep the fire inside.

Days where I burn.
And get burned.

There are still bad days. And I’ve seen better days. But I’ve also seen days a hell of a lot worst.

So I’ll limp my way through the bad days with a bucket of water for my burning heart and an extra roll of duck tape for my tattered appendages

Because at least now there can be good days.

Days where I can look gravity in the face and stand up straight.

Days where I remember my name. Sometimes I even say it out loud.

Days where I can let the dust settle on the noose.

Days where I remember why I didn’t go quietly.

Days where I can see it.

Days where my eyes wander upwards and the sky almost looks like it did before it fell down on my head.

Days where I pick up the needle and find another part of myself to sew back on.

Days where I think about other days, and what they’ll be like when they get here.

Days that I love.
And am loved.

So yeah, I’ve seen better days, but I’m getting better in the face of the bad days.

Because I don’t lack the vision, it’s the method that I always seem to misplace.

But I think I’ll be able to hold onto it...
one of these days…

White sheets, won’t you dry?
Stuck to wire outside
You shake in the wind, trying to fly

Truth comes with a lie
You only hear the parts that you like
Know that the view ain’t from the height
And know that your truth ain’t the same as mine

Black boots, won’t you slow?
Picking up mud as you go
Dragging my feet further from home

Time makes ghosts of us all
Stuck in these pictures we haunt
We measure what’s real by what we’ve lost

These hands were never worth much
Always shaking and cold to the touch
Hollow bones ache looking for love
They bend and they break but it's not enough

But I’ve seen your grey skin
The way you stretch it, trying to fit it all in
I know that your colors all lie within

I know that your colors all lie within