I’m a face in the crowd
With the holier than thou
Who scream so loud
That they’re proud
I look around
Then look at the ground

We disagree
Differing
On different needs
They’re an aggressive breed
Making others bleed
For what they believe
So I flee
Into solitary
Avoiding Ares

I become less brotherly
As I forget the suffering
In my submerged submarine
Where I can’t hear the thundering
Of social interaction blundering

I’m exiled in style
Haven’t seen people in a while
Which makes me smile
Skipping their trials
Walking for miles
Without the vile
Spewing their bile

I walk through peaceful pastures
Far away from our corporate masters
Dodging all the disasters
That make us die faster
I focus on the pastor
To live happily ever after

I lose my relatability
In a state of tranquility
From the holy trinity
Helping me see infinity
And start living differently
Instead of living miserably

Using ignorance for protection
I start to lose connection
To important lessons
That met my deflection
Or circumvented detection
As part of my rejection
Of society’s infection

I try to avoid negativity
But I can’t set the living free
If all my life is giving me
Reflects my selfish greed
Living under tranquil trees
Away from their hypocrisy
And false democracy
Always mocking me
From afar
Leaving the door ajar
For me to heal some scars
But for that I’ll have to leave Mars
And mingle with the stars
That float in the distance
While I watch their imprints
Making the night sky different

I avoid their pain
Becoming lame
Playing a game
Of staying tame
So I circle the drain
Without leaving a stain

The roads we build impact the ecosystem
Squirrels are turned into roadkill
As vultures find new sources of food
We must remember our effect on others
And try to not impose our will on them
Yet roads are too important to not use
Progression means moving forward
At a higher speed than before
So we must pave our own paths
Rodents will just have to burrow under

I'm trapped in inclement weather
All my other ties are severed
After finding someone better
Than the ghosts in this nether
So I decisively pulled a lever
Saying I'll love you forever
Even if you love me never

A volcano erupted
In my bed and in my head
But you disrupted
The magma flowing I fled
But with that snuck
A feeling of dread
That my heart was misled

I'm the introvert
Wanting in your shirt
But you're the extrovert
Causing extra hurt
Torrential rain spurts
Out my eyes of no worth
Wishing I had never been birthed

You caused this
So you should take responsibility
But you resist
Your lack of response is killing me
For you insist
On not following me willingly
I feel resentment filling me
Convinced of your villainy

Rain pours from the sky
After a million tries
To win you with lies
After lightning struck my eyes
Seeing you as a prize
Amongst flies

I load my gun
To shoot at a hurricane
For I'm not done
Fighting this absurd pain
Fear consumes me
As I think of losing
With a rejection proving
The futility of what I'm doing
The Earth quakes beneath my feet
Pushing heavy currents in my direction
All the water in the ocean depletes
As I see myself in a tidal wave's reflection

Conquered by the tide
I tried to abide
My eyes haven't dried
Not knowing your side
I'm pushed under by the waves
The water's weight I can't brave
So to the sea I'm enslaved
Chanting your name

The sky turns dark
As thunder booms
I can't find my heart
While darkness looms
My mind is fighting
An accidental sighting
Of chain lightning
That's brain frightening

The storm never ceases
On lonely beaches
So I cowardly retreated
From memories of being defeated
Towards a community of leeches
Yet all they teach is
Happiness will always elude my reaches
After they drained me dry
Leaving me in the desert to fry
In an arid drought of somber sighs
I look to God and ask why

The storm finally stopped
The flood finally subsided
But once I reached the top
Love arrived once again

There was a point in my life
When I was so depressed
I became addicted to ****** for six years
My friends advised, "Drugs won't solve your problems."
And they were right
I didn't want to flee from my emotions anymore
Through immense pain I achieved sobriety
Afterwards I wandered around
Wondering how people dealt with depression normally
So I asked my friendly advisors
"How do people manage their emotions?"
They answered, "By taking drugs."

I live among prying peers
Telling me which way to steer
They’re all I can hear
So to garner cheers
In their direction I veer

I thought if I stayed still
They wouldn’t see me
So I took a pill
So I could be me
But that didn’t free me
Once I was needing
Constant feeding

So I join civilization
And see their indications
Pointing towards temptations
To provide societal placation

They send me
To the trendy
Intending
To amend me

The conformity
Is informing me
Changing horribly
To what I see normally

My confirmation of conformation
Is in observations of obfuscation
In this iteration of integration
Where I conform for calibration

I’m willing to be wrong
To belong
Can I be strong
Singing another’s song?

I want to fit in
So I sit in
Places I’m whipped in
Hatred I’m dipped in
In a crazed conniption

I’ve had a painful life
Under their knife
Giving me strife
To make me right
In their light

Consumed by conformity
Society absorbing me
Changing enormously
To the form I see

I hate what I’ve become
At their behest
So I load my gun
And join the rest

I’ve become an automaton
Building atomic bombs
To drop on the calm
Who don’t sing my song

In all mediums of art
There is a give and take
Between the artist and their audience
Both sides must give everything and take everything
They’re two halves of a whole
In a reciprocal relationship
Where they must give 100%
To meet each other 50/50

The artist must pour their heart and soul into their work
And the audience must reward the artist by doing the same
Consuming art with an enthusiastic, optimistic open mind
Yet many people don’t consume art this way
They enjoy the weight of their own opinions too much
So to try to give their opinions credibility
They become overly critical and jaded

The audience starts to adopt a “this better impress me” attitude
But their criteria is always different
I met an example in a film discussion with a cynic
Who only complained about the plot or CGI
Because they didn’t know what else to look for
And ended up hating plenty of movies
They didn’t know how to watch in the first place

Yet on the other side of that coin
These people convince themselves they like total **** to seem smart
I can never predict what shotgun blast on canvas they’ll call brilliant
But it usually relies on the power of suggestion
A famous person made it or other people like it
Usually explained as “raw emotion” or something along those lines
While thoughtful and interesting work is shot down

This mentality turns artists away
While attracting frauds
Who develop a pretense to impress those idiots
By acting like an artiste
They contribute to a culture devoid of depth
Where critical thinking is used to find ways of being different
As asserting individuality trumps emotional connection
For consumers trying to avoid appearing superficial
Yet they just end up unique and shallow

Preacher sees in black and white
So preacher sees he’s right
Justified by God’s light
To judge on sight

Preacher says secular music is evil
Not meant for holy people
He’s not even talking about Slayer
Or Jay-Z rapping about being a player
He uses Led Zeppelin as an example
When more relevant options are ample
My musical taste is trampled
Like some shameful scandal

He tells me not to listen to Crazy Train
So I think he has a lazy brain
That didn’t listen to what Ozzy was saying
That song wasn’t about foxy ladies
Or boxing babies
Or buying a Mercedes
Just diagnosing the rabies
Of a species in training

If I don’t listen
How can I help?
It sounds like a mission
To focus on myself
Instead of pain that is felt
By those who have welts
That kind of life seems reductive and boring
When outside it’s storming
And everyone ignores me
The music is God performing
Just for me

Preacher wants to delete
The musical elite
Until only gospel plays on repeat
At that point I’ll take a seat
Saying that’s neat
But I’m looking for more
Like opinions on war
And the dominion formed
Through judgmental scorns
That leaves our culture torn

The church is a microcosm of society
With the preacher dictating propriety
Saying ignore the secular entirely
To not live so direly

I found the divide between the secular and religious
When both take their culture to an extent prodigious
They start acting vicious
Once they’re comfortable in their niches