Metallica is my friend’s favorite band
I had always dismissed them as generic and repetitive
But that arrogance and indifference eventually faded
And recently I started going through their music
Discovering there was a lot I missed out on
Adding new songs to my life’s soundtrack
While teaching me a lesson of humility and empathy
Conversations with my friend have grown deeper and more specific
Helping me relate to him
Strengthening our friendship
Through the vast and surprising benefits of consuming art

Through the trees
I hear the screams
From killing sprees
Where critters feed
And their prey bleeds
In dire need
Of a savior steed
To come running from the hills
But all I see are landfills
Made from man’s will
In this selfish standstill
Trying to band bills
For canned thrills

I hear the screams of animals
They can’t be examined though
I must deal with cannibals
That are shooting cannonballs
While the innocence of man falls
And only the vicious stand tall
In the forests and town halls
The killers control it all

I must watch my own back
For a predatory attack
So I run through the forest
Staying on my own track
Until I’ve become the sorest
Making my vision black
So I join the vicious pack
Of wolves that eviscerate
Less fortunate creatures
Accepting my vicious fate
In this dismal feature

The animals I had to defeat
Now hang from my teeth
Like a sword in its sheath
Their life I deplete
For a night’s sleep
Of the mighty elite
By joining the feet
That trample and beat

I’m an evil force
Until I see the horse
That’ll change the course
Advising us to avoid the source
Of that which causes pain
Yet that’s my vicious game
So I feel the richest shame
But I’m ignored all the same
Yearning for fields of grain
Growing outside of my lane
Nourishing the timid and tame
Who I convinced myself were lame
Who’ve now broken the chains
Of hell’s flames

I drew from the vicious well
Now I live in a parallel
Spare hell
Blocking the stairwell
To the place the mare sells
Of refreshing fair smells
Instead of the death in this abyss
I should’ve uncurled my fist
To make the steed’s list
So I might’ve found bliss
Now I must fulfill my wish
Of viciousness

While I am innocently driving
Headlights approach behind me
That are totally blinding
Here nobody will find me
So I have to keep riding

I can barely see the road
Because the scary glow
Only seems to grow
As it gets closer
To bringing me closure
In what could be a bull dozer

Sweat falls down my cheek
Because times are bleak
When I can’t see the street
The lights and my car meet
Yet I continue moving
As the lights go through me
They illuminate my cabin
Like a luminescent dragon
Disorienting my brain
With blinding pain
On this winding lane
During hazardous rain

The headlights float through my car
While shining like an exploding star
I’m having difficulty seeing very far
The headlights are my vision’s guard
Because my eyes start burning
While my wheels keep turning
I reluctantly resume learning
Shining pain on this journey

Well this isn’t good
The lights went through my hood
Violently twisting metal
But not the gas pedal
So my car won’t settle
As the blinding lights replace my own
Now blinding others feels like home
For I want the light’s pain to be known
So I won’t feel so alone
In this blinding zone

When it comes to creating art
And somebody starts explaining
“All you have to do is...”
I can always count on the reductive advice that follows
To be only worth discarding

A naive missionary
Trying to be visionary
Did something real scary
He went to North Sentinel Island
A place inhabited by lost savages
And now nobody can find him
Because they violently ravaged him

He had visions of healing
And also God revealing
He was worth revering
After the savages hearing
His apocryphal cheering
Would stop their spearing
Causing societal endearing

But he arrived on the shore
For a one sided war
Of blood and gore
Until he was no more
This man of God
Saw man as flawed
And looked for applause
By teaching glorious laws
Of his divine cause
But met flying claws
He couldn’t pause
Their brains were too narrow
Much like their arrows
That flew like war sparrows
Into his bone marrow

Spreading God’s love
Without safety gloves
Leads to push and shove
Instead we must look above
While giving others space
Treating them with grace
And not seeing it as a race
Where their lifestyle must be replaced
Or their brutal culture erased
But be aware of the problems we face
When we start to desperately chase
Moments of transcendence
And fame
That will ultimately end us
In shame

I stick with what I know
Refusing to grow
Until I’m losing the show
With nowhere to go
I become part of the flow
Of an abandoned road

Staying in my lane
Playing video games
I’m becoming lame
With thoughts so tame
Ignoring doubtful shame
And bouts with pain
To preserve my brain
From harsh stains
So when I’m social
I am only hopeful
They don’t see I have no soul

To reach the top of that hill
I need to develop the will
To acquire a new skill
That’ll leave me fulfilled
And not on pills
But on playbills
That pay bills
Where the bay spills

But learning language
Brings me anguish
The stench of my French
Puts me on the bench
And I’m speaking German
Like I’m inside a Sherman
So I give up sounding like Napoleon
And go try out the accordion

But my focus on instrumentation
Only causes further insulation
When it doesn’t give placation
Requiring practice and inspiration
Yet I can’t tell the difference between a piano and a dynamo
But I guess I wasn’t really trying though
What I’m doing is more like dying slow
Parked in the snow
With nowhere to go

I have no patience
Nor discipline
I crave safeness
And indifference
For living with ease
Is my domestic disease
Drowning on my knees
Until I’m not interesting
In this interest sea
Where I float free
But don’t see

I say it’s all been done before
So why should I do any more?
Those before me got to score
And then closed the door
To the convenience store
They created a mangled mold
Out of their stranglehold
On the angles sold
But my blame grows old
As my claims are told
And my peers are polled
Concluding I’m not bold
After becoming cold

After a head start
I wait for a spark
Alone in the dark
With no real heart
Expecting my part
To fall in my lap
And people to clap
While I can’t do a thing
I can’t dance or sing
My hands I wring
Scheming ways to be king
Without pulling the strings
And never committing
It’ll be here I’m sitting

I wish I could tell certain people
That they cause me great pain
But if I did I fear they would leave me
Because they don’t want to hurt me
Which makes me love them
Causing me great pain