I'm a nutjob waiting to be cracked
by someone with the decency and will
to put me out of my misery
my floors are ***** and though it
drives me crazy
instead of sweeping I
just stare at the piles of **** and
steam blows from my ears
I'm like that in the way where fixable
things get my blood boiling yet I
won't be the one to get it done
what's the point
another pair of shoes will drag in
more dirt tomorrow
I say I'll sweep then
It'd be more realistic to say
I'll just stare

I try in my mind
To truly define
What it is that you think when you see me

Do you cower with fear
When I come near
Or just tag me with brutal indifference

Could there be something there?
Or should I not care
What the choice of your words mean to me

Is there something wrong
With my desperate old song
Or am I just chasing that old wild goose once again

Well get some insight
On my messed up cruel mind
And fill in the jokers you've sent me...

Listen to the sound of the clock.
Does it beat the same for you?
Days are passing by and I
Would pay handsomely to miss the view.

The winter soon approaches
And the leaves even depart.
And who's to say for sure
If we really hold them in our heart?

Listen to the sound of your heart.
I don't understand all of the commotion
Perhaps a kiss, a touch, and unrequited feeling.
The logic just never seems to dictate that senseless emotion.

Because who's to say that love
can overcome all of the fear?
When nothing in this world besides confusion
is set in stone and crystal clear?

Listen to the sound of your head.
Does it puncture your mind with sorrow?
Even when the torches light the way for me,
I can't seem to illuminate tomorrow.

Who first decided there was a purpose?
A poor idealist who failed?
I suppose he hoped for better days.
For lovers and dreams that never bailed.

I grow tired of dreaming.
Because life is just too pragmatic.
I'm older and just that more beaten down.
It's just becoming so traumatic.

I tread on the tightrope
Suspended between thinking too little
And thinking too much

I balance precariously
Tiptoeing towards optimism
But humanity sways me
And I shakily creep
Towards despair

The costume chafes
There is not enough chalk on my shoe
The lights are too bright
And a pearly bead of self-awareness
Trickles past my temple
And drips on the dirt baseness
A thousand feet below

And yet--

The crowd smiles
And gasps
And cheers
And claps
And I am reminded
That everything
Is a show

So I smile
And I bow
With a flourish
And I soak in the adoration

And try to forget
That the struggle repeats
Each night
In each town

But the show can
And does
Go on

He was love’s fool
A drop of rain
In a downpour of seasonal shame
A farthing in the fountain
Spent on wishes
Glistening in the fenlands
Of unreplenished riches

A plea, among the rustling
In a vast forest of variegated leaves
Sorrow among garrulous winds gusting
A path through
His wooded pathos
Blazed with love and lusting

Then a tear finds wing
On a falling leaf
Snapped from the limbs
by currents of heat
rockabye'd into halcyon
so misery and his companion
Forge a new coin

Thrown and flipping along an arc
A pinwheel casting solar sparks
Purling hope in a tumbling fall
promises anything can happen
To anyone
Anytime
at all

Some people ask me
Why I walk barefoot
They say
"It's dangerous"
And in my experience
They are right
But I walk on

The streets are littered with filth
It coats my feet and stains my skin
Glass and stones cut into my flesh
And I bleed onto the ground
A trail of red left in my wake
It hurts
But I walk on

Few understand why
I would put myslef through this
The Pain
The Stink
Wading through the ******* of the world
But I tell them this
I walk on

I walk on because the things that hurt
Are all things that we've made
And if I can move passed them all
They won't be able to hurt me anymore

I walk on because through the mess
Through the hurt
I can feel the ground
The warmth of the sun touching the earth
And I know it's all worth it

So yes
It is dangerous
But I've found that there are great things in this world
Under the layers we've built to conceal it
And though it's painful
The good outweighs the bad
If only you let yourself find it

You may wear shoes if you want
Protect yourself
That is your wish
But I will not
Because covering my feet
Simply means
They will feel nothing at all