Screams come from shadows
the dark is thick
air turns to ash into my lungs
my bones tremble under thought

Where are they?
My demons don’t walk
down the street
up the hall
into my room
up to me….

Are they gone?
I miss the forceful choking,
weight against my chest
asphyxiation in the absence
their finest act.

The problem with people-watching
in the middling suburbs outside Pittsburgh,
is everyone looks like they’re related,
a little too similar, bad photocopies
of the same dull morality.
The girls have similar haircuts
and the boys wear similar shorts.
The men and women,
they cannot stomach the ‘F’ word,
but they adore efficient order
enforced through totalitarian violence.
Chemical air fresheners are pumped
through department store ventilation systems.
Perhaps the compound is designed
to induce complacency for the status quo
and suppress everyone's style
or sense of fashion.

I'm living in a tiny box
With pin pricked holes around
I see the light reflect on skin
And hear most every sound

The walls -- opaquely vivid
I see all that is to be
But sometimes I only wish
I was a different me

A me that didn't have a box
A me that interacted
One who could live out loud and wild
One that's less distracted

One that didn't have restraints
Who filled her life with fun
Because living inside my box
Is dulling heat from sun

See, some can live without a box
Smiling through their skin
They dance and run under the sun
The world is but their kin

They go on great adventures
Capture potent smiles
Dance under the raining sky
And sing out loud for miles.

I'd like to say my box protects
From ultimate demise
But the things that worry me the most
Are the things that lie inside

If you’re not being stretched,
then could it be that you’re…
suffering an ungodly attitude
of your own Life’s complacency?
When looking around, do you see

the discrimination, intolerance,
injustice, hatred, poverty and
other societal ills affecting us?
Is God’s Love evident in actions
of everyday living, so Salvation

is really sought, by those, you…
hope to spiritually influence?
Can others even tell, that Christ’s
essence, upon your life has been…
sacredly and divinely etched?

I wish to live, but in turn, learn to die.
When she longs to laugh, and somehow,

I cry –

So brewed the complacent,
Floating-waking dreams,
Withering with the wind,
And against it my screams.