You’re a heavy hitter
and I’m just a runner
afraid of getting tagged out
so I avoid the other players
and their neutralizing touch.
I don’t have a proper stance
hands drowning in my pockets
to avoid a strike zone
shoulders wide.

The force
field of romance
rebukes all contact
causing loneliness
limited to lying
low in the dirt
dour and hurt.

So I avoid your touch
to avoid your warmth
to avoid your essence
because I’ve learned enough lessons
to know on the other side of your silk skin
lies my skeleton.

My fingers will form barbs
that will cling to your hand
and sink into your skin
until you see my sin
is in holding on
and your presence is my prison
I’d commit crimes to remain in.

Your face is the Behemoth
that roams my mind.
Your words are the Leviathan
that swims through my blood.
God loves both of these creatures
despite their destructive force
He transposes that love into me
yet when I approach them
I am gnashed in the teeth
of a gargantuan beast.

I live between church and society
never entering either entirely
I go to church and sing with God in me
but each memorable melodic monody
sounds increasingly odd to me
when there are only flaws I see.

Last night I had a horrid dream
I was with my worship team
when their worship scheme
resembled war ship steam.

It seemed like a normal service
but tonight we had special guests
the kind that can afford to purchase
every bell and whistle, nothing less.

I was to be their guide on tonight's spiritual ride
I trailed them like their extravagant robes
wishing to be someone people flock to in droves
but all I have are my words
and the Holy Spirit
so I sing like a bird
with radio interference.

Despite my best intentions of making a good impression
the service was a disaster in need of a master
unchecked videos wouldn't work
preplanned cues were missed
responsibilities were shirked
and I was ******.

My worship team started complaining
in a manner I found to be draining
because my must-see team of trusty steeds
had morphed into prima donna demon llamas
passing the buck and saying "that *****".

Under our Jesus painting
a sight has shanked me
a fire breaking
through our mistaking.
When the fire is small
it's no big deal
but once it grows tall
it becomes real.

We all had to evacuate
for firefighting to actuate
our realization of facts too late
that we'd failed a task too great.
I take my family to the church attic
away from all the stampede traffic
I think up there we can hack it
and look at the area impacted.

The sanctuary is a giant ember
yet dripping wet
I want to return to sender
fire grips me best
and grows at my behest
an emerging inferno infects
the sanctuary's rest.

Understanding danger
I escape with my family
outside with strangers
who all stand with me
we cry over spilt ilk
and brick that wilts.

But people toned down their tears
and stifled their sobs
like silencing fear
was their only job
so as the church was mourned
a makeshift line was formed
to consign Satan's scorn
and be alive and born.

They lined down the street
a church without seats
they still needed to speak
and seek out the meek.
They started praying together
praying for healing
not for the church to be better
but each other's feelings
their friends that were reeling
still needed the word so appealing.

I look back at the church
but I don't see it there
I don't lament its worth
or complain it's unfair
I save my despair
for those that need care.
A humble abode has replaced the opulent cathedral
where the ****** of the masses once found its needle
now there's a house that's meek like the women inside
could this be the house by which God wants me to abide?
I open the doors
and walk right in
I can feel in my core
the removal of sin.

Nighttime is perilous
pestilential predators lurk
evisceration entropy envelopes everything
wounds are collected like keys to doors leading underground
and I can hear a jingling in my pocket
so I denounce the nighttime
unlocking the door to a home
where one can sleep at night.

But once I go outside in tomorrow’s morning
the sunlight shines into my soul, cooking my sutured skin
along with the keys I’ve collected
burning through my clothes
and into my body
flies can smell subcutaneous sizzling a mile away
they yearn to feast, buzzing all around me
crawling through my insides
multiplying
while vultures fly laps around me from above.

So I throw a nocturnal drape over the tumultuous foothills
and begin imparting my basement keys onto others
an imposing locksmith
a charitable safecracker
Johnny Applekeys
prowling with pouncing predators
masking my petulant bitterness with false wisdom
my edgy perception of maturity tells me to be jaded
hey, that’s just the way it is
I call myself an honest realist
a self ordained keymaster
I wear my key ring proudly
and distribute keys to those around me.

Stuck between persistent motion and paralysis
my key chains start swinging like pendulums
dancing like an opposing militia
like my eyes once I start getting nervous
waiting for the receipts to my exchanges
reflecting how I’m living in the red
and the debt I owe others
I can only pay in keys leading nowhere.

I try to convince them that the doors I unlock lead to riches
but we all know they’re paths to the hell from whence I came
my words are for myself
like the hell I man the ferry for
selling keys to scary doors
used as lifeboats in my shipwreck life
surviving off of other people’s strife.

The keys are overflowing from my makeshift pit
they poke into my veins like needles from the past
suffocating me like a rat in an hourglass, buried in sand
I imagine it’s the beach to the shore I can reach no more
unlike my swamp where I act as lifeguard
to a lagoon no man inhabits
I say “the water is fine, hop on in”
when I don’t even know how to swim
so even the trees think that I’m dim
when I hang my keys on their limbs.

Surviving night means eat or be eaten
yet my decisions effect daytime treatment
when scars put me behind bars
I inquire as to the depth of the dungeon
digging a subterranean home then diving deeper
finding company at the bottom with grim reapers
where the ostrich that flies is ostracized until it’s fossilized
so I sit in my estranged egg
not wanting to ever hatch
but no matter how much I beg
my keys unlock the latch.

The internet connects culture.
We used to not know how to act
and took cues from proximal role models
or distant stars.
Now we take cues from the internet
or those who are
and we become one person.
Everybody wants to talk about the daily melees and brawls
nobody wants to talk about Super Smash Bros.
and how when it came out the internet wasn’t really a thing
so people had to learn to play on their own
and each person you faced was a new experience
but now everyone learns the best strategies from the internet
and pick between only a few different characters.

Most people understand fighting is immoral and shameful
(plenty of exceptions obviously).
People also understand there are situations where one must fight
(to maintain agency).
So the idea is to avoid those kinds of situations
(to circumvent compromising morality).

For a company, an economy, our species to succeed
everyone must work together
but not literally everyone
just enough to perpetuate sustainability
so some feel free to burn bridges to clear their own road.
Professional wrestlers use the phrase
“Going into business for themself”
when someone has to get all their **** in to display their move set
or no-sells their opponent’s moves to make themselves look tough
like in improv comedy
when one of the performers doesn’t go along with any of the jokes
it can be very funny, just not in a collectively beneficial manner
the audience laughs recognizing the performer as the standout
while the performer steps on their colleagues’ jokes
going into business for themself.
Capitalism indoctrinates us
to go into business for ourselves
like Bill Gates
driving companies out of business through economic hostility
then buying back his soul through economic charity
a tribute to those fallen—it’s a fractional penance
the apex predator keeps the lion’s share
adhering to the jungle mentality ingrained in us
telling us to go into business for ourselves.

Ghost Adventures is a joke
a TV show and a hoax
for people who’ve toked
and superstitious folks.

They’re live streaming an episode on the Dybbuk Box
for viewers to gimmick watch
The Duke and Earl’s
farce to unfurl.

They bring in a rabbi
to play along
to say what’s wrong
but the rabbi says there’s nothing to the Dybbuk Box
in response the ******* scoffs
because the cynic stopped
his thickened plot.

They tried to use the rabbi’s trade
to substantiate their charade
with credibility of a higher grade
but the rabbi protected his religion
better him than someone indifferent
who’s living in a paycheck prison
instead the rabbi made the decision
to stop the derision
with a logical incision.