do you like to worship yourself
better than worshiping anyone else?
do you look at any glass
except the ones that show yourself?

haven't you heard?
the towers have fallen!
haven't you heard
That towers can fall?

and then, just when
I thought I had seen it all...

i found myself sitting in a different
                                     room
  it looked like a palace
                         but it was a tomb
  like a bleeding, barren womb
  like a child born far too soon
       and it was dark
       and i was scared
       and adults were gathered in a far-off room

and there were things in there with me
that the adults couldn't see
and they were dark and they were small
with the sharpest little teeth

I'VE LOST SOMETHING
something's been taken!
they tore something out of me
     i knew the moment
     i awoke
     and saw the daylight flee

do you paint pictures of food
to donate to starving children?
do you max out your credit card
to profit off God's business?

the towers
shining like mirrors
we see our reflection
   then all is just shattered
   then all that once mattered
   is a column of smoke in the wind
        and angels descend
        from mansions pretend
        to caverns below
        where old Titans stow
                  away
     awaiting the day
      that Chaos will arrive
      their savior
and swallow Earth and its deepest recesses
and them along with it all
   and Vishnu sleeps
   on the endless serpent

Evil isn’t caring more about yourself than others
But tricking others into caring more for you
Than themselves

somehow you always expect the universe to wait for you.
that the trees will stop growing and the sky will stop raining.
maybe the rivers will stop flowing or the snow will stop falling.
you wither away,
just waiting for the moment that the sky will bend to hold your hands and pull you to stand a little straighter.

you let yourself fall apart while the world moves on in hopes that it will stop.
the earth will stop spinning,
the seasons will stop changing,
people will stop leaving you behind,
wind will stop blowing away the ashes of your broken memories.
you hope against hope that the trees will weave themselves together to make you a safety blanket.
maybe the mountains will rise around you and protect you from the barrage of the outside world,
but it never does.

time goes on,
people grow older,
they grow more independent.
nothing in the universe will wait for you as you grow tired in an endless battle over your own subconscious,
an endless battle to win back the privilege to control your own life.

you find yourself lost time and time again,
wandering down an abandoned road,
caught in a sea of loneliness,
waves crashing against you as you fight to breathe and fix your life.
you suffocate with lack of authority over your own being.
your reliance on the support will be your undoing.

but still,
you blame it on those who are too busy fixing their own life to deal with your madness,
those who are already caught in their own war and let themselves suffocate to let you breathe,
leaving you behind.
a sole survivor who is waiting in line to suffocate for another,
an endless cycle of selfishness and selflessness.

With a little help
from richer family
and friends
I could live on
the high end.
I could follow
fashion trends,
find a fabulous mansion
and go dancing
with actors and
their model companions.

Just three steps up on
the social ladder,
I could become
a capitalistic
champion
and conquer
all the lesser men
who are barely
managing
to compete
adequately.

I could plant
golden trees
which spring
financial
gratuities
in perpetuity,
and my annual returns
would cause others
to yearn and burn
in jealousy.

I could leave all
the human suffering,
as I detach from the facts
of human empathy
taking all the pleasure
for me
and leaving nothing
for the rest of humanity.

Then I could run
to become
president
and pretend to make
America great
while I continue to take
more and more for me.

Are we not all witnesses?
Are we not all victims?
Are we not all perpetrators?
Of the crime of ****** by life....

Eyes were bright and strong,
a fire.
But those words,
they turn the sharpest wit a flicker.

You ever see much esteem in the world?
Here, at the height of the ornamented, luxurious actress,
representing the varied arts of impersonation.
Here, attention before the other side of the story.

Follow the symbolic whiskey whisper.
Gently evade the central thought of the world,
so
tragically human.

Scattered across my bedroom floor,
glimmers of light staccato on wilted rose pedals

Memories of us, 
the faintest slapback of the person I was with you,
flicker with lethargic buoyancy 

Fondness for fondness sake,
denial as a delicacy

Your face, obscured in these floral polaroids
Impressions of who you were;
what you meant to me,
a struggle to behold
but recognizable in ripples across the faces of others

Remains of an entanglement that seemed to answer
why the universe was even formed to begin with

This omnipresent truth laying abed the other
jagged reality of our affair;
it was never you,
it was my self-possessing pursuit of wholeness