There's no streetlights on my street,
Not a single person walking by,
The kids are all stuck in school day time
The adults are stuck on a slaving grind
It's just one of those nights and one of those smiles
Where the situation is serious
But you can keep calm for a while
And in the silence of a night like this
You're totally in it.
I can't explain it better than that
Hopefully you understand.

I watch a movie that I've watched,
At least ten times before
for a familiar peace of mind
Barely watching, fighting a mental war
But, the cinema still rolls in a ritualistic way
Laughing at the parts
that make me laugh each time it plays
You know and I know it's going to be okay
Yet honestly I need a moment to unwind
And that is perfectly fine.

The hard times in life, they don't come at dark times
They come on a sunny Friday without a cloud
In a second of a moment everything can change
That's not always true, but it's true enough
Some meaningless advice from me to to you.
It's strange that you change from reader to reader,
I stay the same as naked as poetry
Keeping emotion raw and a flow with these words
I pull out of my skull in a second to say,
in a second to say whatever I feel like saying.

I've got a pocket full of tomorrows
In a pair of jeans with a rip
They only trickle out so when asked for time to borrow
I don't mind stopping even a little bit.
They tell me the stress of a job
Is worth a barely liveable wage
Something tells me I'm being robbed
Too tired to even sit and write a page.
Talking to myself as a child about the real
He says I shouldn't shake a hand on such a raw deal.

The same kid dreaming of a Tall-tale Town,
With a train blowing up cotton candy clouds,
I bet most people don't remember that now
Writing in physics class about a nonphysical town.
Now I write to slow time to think myself whole,
Time just being the distance over the speed
Sitting light years away, letting my story unfold
Until I drag myself back down to take the lead.
The stories may appear to some eyes with less fantasy
But I keep trying to write lines that defy gravity

There's a world out there flowing through the moon and sun
I won't stop dreaming until that world is done

Dear Ana,

I feel like I've had you on my mind, this whole life.
I feel like you might take me from this family,
Suffocating me, cutting me out with a knife
It's hard for me to understand why you follow so close,
At times when I eat alone, I think of you the most, Ana.
While other demons take a backseat you will never be ghost
They called me a freak in school with you on my chest
And Ana the nights you felt closest,
Are the times I wanted to rest.

When I see your face, you leave me breathless,
My heart starts pounding with my mouth trembling
You pull me in and whisper "let's end this"
As much as it pains me not to succumb to your song,
I pull your arms from my neck then you're gone,
Gone in a person but there in a presence
But I don't agree to that fate, yet have come to acceptance

So Ana, you say you miss me and every meeting seems dire
The doctors, they tell me, you're bad for my health
Still until I expire you'll never retire
And Ana feels access holding my throat in
With one injection and slowly i count to ten
Now Ana be silenced for a moment
But still talking from within.
Ana never leaves but keeps quiet until it's a struggle again

What are you trying to say,
Lately I've been asking myself.
It feels like my thoughts are too piled up
With only a feather to dust these shelves
Sweep these images off of my chest
Left scraping together this disorganized mess.
I'm having trouble with my fan base,
The trouble is I don't have a fan base.
Stuck in a position of not knowing what I want to be,
I know who I am, now let's look past me.

I've been debating religion and stuck in an uncomfortable position
Of calling most the church goers hypocrites
Only following the rules when the shoe fits
Then gossip in the back of the pew
about a man with more struggles than you
Hung up on other's demons, while pretending to smile
We send them to a mental trial, tell the next person
Next you leave them exiled, pulling some godly ranks.
Ask me to come to that place, I'll say no thanks.

It's another lakeshore day, it's another late night
Taking a breath of the wild at 2 am through dim light.
Sitting in the same room, with a little time to type
I'm stuck in my thoughts but unable to know what to say
So I'll leave this on an ironic tone
Yesterday, my father wished me a happy father's day.
But his knowledge of me stands unknown.

I go down this lake shore from work to home
Ten minutes to recover my mind, to where I'm going.
It's been alright, some nights I just want to write
Then crash on a pillow with blankets pulled tight,
Awake to a blank page with an LED light.
Smile to push that aside, with dark circles,
Speaking the truth that I'm trying to hide
But I promise I'm alright.

My mother sometimes worries, I'm stuck getting buried at work.
Eat a lunch at my station on a twelve hour rotation.
Don't worry, I can't say I'm in a hurry to work life away
All the extra just keeps the bills at bay.
Back on that lake shore, I'm soaring each day.
Today, I woke sedated and hated the feeling of dealing
With each public problem until Ryan solves them,
Another one is floating my way.

I sail through the breeze with a little unease
But the wind has me all the same.
And I hope you don't find like I,
as if I don't have much time
So pay me no mind, I still fear the end of my game.
I clock these ten hours of chore
Just to drift down that lake shore and find my way home again.

I wrote a lot today it seems
In just my mind through working mayhem
Without a pause to jot the thoughts i thought
I didn't have a pad to pen,
so when I had a chance to write them, sadly, I forgot.
Most days, I'd say, I have a lot on my chest
If I don't wash them off, they slowly infect
The inner rind of my brain, I rewind and replay
But when Ryan writes it out, no dismay just joy
Making me not such a dull boy, leave the work
And go play.
That's the opposite of Jack, I'd say.

They say not to judge a book by its cover,
Others say trust instincts overall
Yet I say that instincts are synonymous to covers
Either way I'll shake your hand and say "Good day" .
But speaking of covers i cut the front page of books
And glued one to each the other in order to make all agree,
Then I went with my gut and started to read.
Don't bother making sense and forget being tense
For in the future perfect, i will have still been correct.

I'd often agree to take time to see through eyes
Other than my own,
Imagine the times so concentrated, now as an adult grown.
Still I lose, in the most humble defeat,
No sir, I cannot walk a single block in your shoes,
For i have such small feet.

A woman walks through a store with a couple of kids,
She doesn't know yet  but she only has a week to live,
While a man at the register is getting ****** because he can't
Buy case of energy drinks using food stamps
While right outside the store, an old lady is being mugged
The crook runs right past a couple who just fell in love.
Meanwhile across the street a biker jumped over a ramp
A bus honks at him carrying a camp of kids
Who are all starry-eyed and don't even know what it's like to live

It's funny, the moment I'm sitting in
Stopped the world for the moment
To let all these little things sink in
Its funny, most people aren't watching our fall
If this whole place disappeared,
I fear no one would notice at all.

A kid brought a gun to school the other day,
While one played hookey, all his friends blasted away
Now he has guilt just for lying and surviving
showing that the worst thing isn't always dying.
Most people are more scarred of public speaking than dying
I'd rather stand on a podium inspiring peers
Than have anyone crying wishing I was here
It's funny how it all seems simple when I'm looking in the rear

It's funny, the moment I'm sitting in
Stopped the world for the moment
To let all these little things sink in
Its funny, most people aren't watching our fall
If this whole place disappeared,
I fear no one would notice at all.

Do you ever question who you'd be if you weren't you
And your past was someone else's and never knew what you knew
Would you still have the same beliefs, probably not
Currently they seem undeniable but they sold and you bought
If you lived across the world it might mean nothing at all
But no one is paying attention, no one's watching us fall

I've been having a war with my bathroom door
Cleaning my closet feels like a waste
When I have all this dirt on my face
I keep wearing my mind on my sleeve  
Look at the mess the brain matter started to leave
And the fiends only stopped knocking because
I never lock these gates anymore
All these thoughts mentally start to swirl
Stuck arguing with myself
Unravel my second being like Professor Quirrell
Now who's got the stone to make me melt?

They make work miserable, act unique they'll smash though
"Here's a black suit, black shoes, now that's you"
Act passionate and we'll laugh at you or stare
Until you have no personality to share at all
Now take a pat on the back and another task to attack
But we won't pay you any extra for any of that.

I'd rather melt with these snowflakes
Than be a powder keg of suppressed emotion
Snap my fingers in a quick motion
And blow up these baby boomers
Then assume I don't have my mind in check
While you drink through pain a wreck
I'm two hundred percent proof, you sit loose
About as real as hi-c implying it's juice
If my twenty year old body ******* this world
You made her a *****
And she was only looking for a better player to score

I have this bass in my skull
So now all my thoughts are pounding
But come out with an emotion that's dull
They want me to speak a little more serious
I laugh off the world's issues because if not I'd be furious
Everybody believing everything they read
Knowing no one's really reading because very few believe in me
Rather splatter the internet with a rumor or scheme
Then trust that they're soaking your carrots in chlorine
I mean,  what if you took the time to research and truly decide?
I'm not a god or a prophet, sir, I'm just along for the ride
As you drive into the unknown,  you follow that front wheel
But what if your bike has a mind of its own?

They've got us distracted off on a less than beaten path
With another sweep to knock you off your feet
Left to be eaten by Chuckle Teeth.
They smell fresh meat quicker than Jaws
Then you're stuck in a loop in some fictitious claws.
"But look at the validity and all of these facts"
If you found it that easy, they planted the evidence for just that
And nobody's listening just fighting their case
While I stand on the sideline and awkwardly pace

How come we have to die
To show up in someone's mind
You can have a thousand friends
That all showed up after the end
Who pretend that they were there,
Who pretended that they had cared.
All the people standing over my hole,
I'm staring at you from six feet down here
But if this life isn't, why believe death is fair.

They keep speaking of tragedy
Being the only way to really promote peace
Cooking enough enemy meat to have a feast
But the enemy is me when the enemy is you
Both told we are right, both believing it's true.
When we both fell to the floor its only then we knew
We truly only have one life to lose.

Remember being kids? Remember where we lived?
Living the only place we could afford to go,
Spent eight years getting out of the mold
So when this anxiety and panic even try to take hold
I use those cards I was dealt to never fold.
Im not asking for a thing because everything
I ever had was mine
And if it all fades away that's absolutely fine
The memories are the only thing I won't leave behind.
And that's absolutely fine.