What a strong grip that you've managed to keep so long
How does it still feel in this moment?
Realize now that the grip was too strong
It's gone too numb to feel if it still constricts
Emboldened by the lies that cross the threshold of those lips

You get what I give and I give you what I deserved
You reap what I sow, but I know what you think I don't
Believe me, you know you've deceived me

You seem baffled as I start to roam away from your reach
Wondering where went the chain you've anchored
What of the lessons you've attempted to teach
To keep me guilted, controlled and manipulated
So you can seek all you want from the others you've lied to

You take what I give but I get what you deserved
I've reaped what you sow and you know that I don't
Believe you, I know you've deceived me

So come clean to me
Bare all your guilt
Set me free
You've already abandoned me

Still you don't resist
To continue so disrespectfully
You keep your secrets disappearing
So what is it that you still want from me?

So come clean to me (come clean, come clean)
Bare all your guilt (what you hide from me)
Set me free (your cage no longer fits)
You've already abandoned me

So why should I stay by you?

©July 2024 Neal Emanuelson

My fault,
And only my own.
That's what you say
In your dim dark tone.
I pick up the phone,
Shaking with rage.
You have my senses
Locked in a cage.
But I stay,
And fray,
For you know best.
Studying my words,
Like an upcoming test.
Taking my heart
To put it in rest.
And that is something,
I deeply detest.
Yet I still
Stay,

For my mind has reset.

I wandered back to the scene of the crime.

I remember all that transpired from that night.

As I was making my way across, the bridge went up in flames.

And the smoke still lingered even after all the tomorrows came.

I saw the match from your hand.

I smelled the gas before I could land.

I blame myself for not expecting it sooner,

when all of your crimes leave the same signature.



All the houses that burned down carried your name.

History said you were going around claiming you were framed.

Yet the clothes you wore still reeked of the fuel.

The last thing they found were skeletons inside a cubicle.

Did you think I’ll always play your game,
never thought I’d grow tired of the same joke every day?
When I came to bid you an honest farewell, 

you thought it was an invitation to send me straight to hell. 


Perhaps I truly am the one to blame.

You did tell me about the things that drove you insane.

And I recklessly chose the path of extrusion.
Perhaps I deserved this execution. 


I wandered back to the scene of the crime.

Where the ghost of the bridge we burned still haunts its culprits.
I saw fear when we locked eyes.
Did you think I’d be reduced to ashes?
Did you think you were burning a witch?
Darling, you forget I’m a phoenix. 

Fire is what keeps me alive.

I don’t play my mandolin everyday anymore,
let alone my guitar or tin whistles
I can’t let this die
I listened to 7 year old Japanese math rock
and want just a speck of that
An identity where I can sift right through
all this mediocre destruction all around
No one even has the gall to admit they’re killing
or the decency to even cover it up anymore
They videotape themselves dancing and
murdering kids for lebensraum
then turn around and say “no we’re not”

I’m tired of surface level house maintenance
followed by immobile phone scrolls
I’m looking for that lesson we’ll all learn
after finally going too far
I won’t play the victim or the hero no more
I did my part and now I’m too old
I need deeper art to escape samsara for good
and maybe that’s the best I can do comrades

I’m sick of details grown so scattered and thin
My whole past feels like entrails
smeared across vast desserts
There used to be rainforests here
but now it’s hard to find the pictures

Just when things almost get too competent and nice
they let decadence do its worse
out of fear that the improvements would make goods and services
too cheap not to be free
Socialism’s bad for business owners
so we lay off the workers and overcharge even more
Let the octogenarian billionaires buy up more water and air
to keep the fellas in the favelas gnashing and grim

Bunker complexes, spaceships, missiles coated in spent uranium;
these are all more important than starving children
Why do the poor keep having poor kids?
Still a conundrum
We gave them a chance to compete
some ephemeral time ago and they blew it
What can we do?
We tried to teach a man to fish…
Imagine Jesus Christ just giving folks fish and bread
for nothing in return?