I found my call of duty
inside your warzone
after leaving my pressurized cabin
and dropping in randomly
I started collecting money and items as fast as I could
to match the competition’s capability.

Everyone’s an enemy, everyone is hostile
I fear them and the weapons they’ll use on me
barraging me with dragon’s breath shotgun blasts
to put me down quickly
or silently sniping from far away
so I can’t defend myself.

The only way I can survive is staying in your circle
which keeps moving away from me
so I sprint through the fields and forests
making my way through already looted homes
hoping no one takes advantage of my vulnerability
racing to your circle before I suffocate.

Once I finally get to your circle I realize it’s too small to hide in
because everyone is so close together
I must engage them before they attack me
but they all lay siege to the small shack I’m trapped in
lobbing grenades and firing at me
I can’t even poke my head out.

So I stay inside
donning my gas mask
letting the circle overtake them and pick them off one by one
as I wait inside anxiously worried someone may try to join me
but eventually they’re all gone and I’m the only one left
and in that moment I have achieved victory royale.

In the 1970s there was a wave of soft pop that struck America
one band at the crest of that wave was The Carpenters
formed by Richard and Karen Carpenter
they were wildly successful
their song We’ve Only Just Begun is still a ubiquitous wedding song
Karen’s smooth and pure voice drew giant crowds
but despite how timeless her music is
it is equally contrasted by the briefness of her life.

Karen captivated a worldwide audience with her music
but some people just can’t be reached
indoctrinated by our superficial society
thinking every celebrity should be a supermodel
critics made snide comments about her being Richard’s chubby sister
even though she wasn’t overweight
and Richard was addicted to Quaaludes
but even more important than the public was Karen’s own mother
who worried of the public’s feelings more than her own daughter’s.

Karen felt pushed to lose weight
so she hired a nutritionist
who loaded her down with carbohydrates
which obviously made her fatter
crushing her faith in nutrition
turning her towards unhealthy methods
...which worked...at first...
but unfortunately it kept working
and she refused to change, unlike her body.

Fans who once cheered for her
now gasped when they saw her emaciated skeleton take the stage
they thought she might’ve had cancer
and were concerned about her weight
but to her it was the same crowd telling her to lose weight
now telling her to gain weight
she was done hearing it
and stuck in her ways.

Her friends were worried about her
and pleaded for her to seek help
but her mother’s profession was repression
so Karen hid her depression
while her mother told her psychiatrists were for crazy people.

Karen tried using a man to make her problems disappear
and married Tom Burris two months after meeting him in 1980
he would verbally abuse her; calling her a bag of bones
then he’d *** money off her; amounts up to $50,000 at a time
needless to say the relationship was ill fated
and they divorced in 1981.

Finally Karen’s friends convinced her to see a therapist
who brought her family into a counseling session
and urged them to tell Karen they love her
of course Richard was willing to say so, they were always really close
especially after Karen had helped him with his own addiction issues
but Karen’s mother refused
berating the therapist for using her first name; Agnes
and informing him that wasn’t how their family did things.

Karen Carpenter passed away February 4, 1982 at the age of 32
she died from ipecac poisoning
she used the substance to induce vomiting every day
and it slowly dissolved her heart.

Richard was devastated.

There’s not much I can add
I guess Karen’s story speaks for itself
it just ****** me off critics jeer with impunity and without empathy
they’re free to cajole great artists while having no value themselves
driving artists away until we’re only left with negativity
it makes me want to cut out all the demons’ razor sharp tongues
before they get a taste of another angel’s wings
but would that really protect those angels
if they’re born to demons?

I live in the absence of presence
proximity filled by emptiness
I look for a god in the machine
but the schematics are held by noncompliant fingers
tightly clutching my rightful deeds
and pointing in the opposite direction.

I’m alive so I feel compelled to live but don’t know how
so when I want to have a night I’ll never forget
I get ****** up
and when I have a night I never want to remember
I get even more ****** up
I think I’m having a good time
but my memory is pretty ****** up.

But something shines through my ****** up memories
a vision of when we first met
you asked me, “What are you up to?”
I misheard you and responded, “Yeah, I’m ****** up too.”
then we talked about this ****** up zoo
and how we could help each other through.

The connection we develop engenders nightmares
I have two kinds of ****** dreams
the ones where I have *** with people I don’t want
bizarre **** like relatives and ghosts
even ghost relatives—and relative ghosts
those dreams can get pretty ****** up
but the dreams where I’m with the people I want
are factored by the power of two
and are exponentially more ****** up.

The dreams become fantasies I can’t reconcile with reality
burying me in insecurity
thinking what keeps me alive is impossible to hold onto like air
I keep wildly grasping in desperate futility
suffocating in deprivation
until eventually I can’t feel anything anymore.

You notice my weakness and attack
you’re a vampire bat
echolocating past relationships you enjoyed more
I tell you you ****** up
and now must slum with a *** instead of number one.

I keep eating up your batshit insanity
contracting your coronavirus
I just want to sleep
I feel like I’m going to die
your fever dreams are sweat submerged stress nightmares
once I start drowning I try to scream
but all that escapes me are the bubbles I live in
they float on the surface, eventually popping.

You keep calling me a clown
so I joke you can juggle my *****
with dismissive sarcasm you respond I should try stand-up
but that’s already what I’m doing
you tell me to jump off a cliff
but I already have
exasperated, you scream I should literally **** myself
but I already write of my own death every night.

You separate from me like a head from a neck
after the noose that tied us together severed our connection
I fell to the ground and realized I was still alive
and started downplaying the bounty on my head
which seems much larger when one sees it on a wanted poster.

I’m not looking for a person
I’m searching for a feeling people are capable of delivering
I don’t care where I find it as long as I do
people often ask me if I’m more attracted to men or women
I find the question somewhat annoying and I’d rather not answer
but if you forced me to choose by putting a gun to my head
that might turn me on even more.

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.