I'm part of a community
working for an oligarch
who treats us with impunity
and without his heart.
Due to the utmost conceit
his throne is one seat
so if we want to come eat
we'll have to compete.

We fight for master's love through production
at the cost of energy reduction
begging for an elitist induction
to the more favorable side of how we function.

The leader is a speeder bleeder
draining liters to move meters
we teeter further down steeper
in this ditch digging deeper.
The guy running the floor
is running for more
so if I run to the store
I run to his door.
He's more decisive
and callous
granting license
to his palace.

Ball and chain
walls of pain
stall my lane
hall of flames
calls for rain
all the same.

Depletion is the mission
in this war of attrition
they want to take all of me and nothing more
compliantly beaten like a loving *****
manning the counter to this ****** store.
Pieces are falling off
my fingers are broken
so I can feed on my slop
with American tokens.

I need to blast home
from this blast zone
my last known
whereabouts
no one cares about
stuck in this warehouse.
My job is to die slowly
in this position lowly
where nobody knows me
isolated and lonely.

One foot in the grave
one foot out the door
no matter how much I save
I can never even the score
which is the reason I'm poor
I reach for the shore
but I'm rebuffed
by makers of stuff
like hatred and such
a hundred acres too much
separates us.
I can't make the miles
with a used up body
so I take up the style
of scratching and clawing.

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

We used to watch our lives together
then you got tired of the show
yet you wanted to keep up with the story
so you downloaded my life on audiobook
narrated by my friends and family
cropping out sections to protect themselves
skipping chapters to give you the plot points
you get the fan edit of my life
and critique a children’s book.

I hear a calling
But I prefer falling
So I practice avoidance
It's a void dance
To an annoyed trance
To avoid a glance
Or taking a chance

People take pieces they don't plan on returning
The only replacement is the sensation of burning
In this hell
With no one to tell
Because I locked my heart
Which felt like a good start
Until loneliness pervaded my soul
And I can't climb out of this hole

I create isolation
When there's no inspiration
I discontinue integration
And go on permanent vacation
I watch movies
To feel groovy
I write
Out of sight
I play video games
To avoid shame
I decide to act lame
So no one asks my name

I begin to feel sour
In my lonely tower
I used to think independence was power
Until I found myself in my darkest hour
With only friends to help
The same friends I put on a shelf
That are now mythical like an elf

Is life just giving all my pieces away?
Disconnection leaves my life grey
But if I decide to stay
My love they will slay
They will toy with my emotions
Until I feel their encroachment
But I'd rather have a toy's chance
Than live my life in a void dance

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

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.

Birds own the day
Bats own the night
Birds see in grey
Bats think they're right
At the break of dawn
Both take flight
Until darkness is gone
And we live in light
The beginning of dusk
Spells the end of our luck
Vampire bats steal our blood
Empire gats steal our love

The birds and the bees
Are no match
For the bats in the trees
They drain our youthful creed
And cause our heart to freeze
Until we hear the pleas
Of others being drained
We're glad they're in pain
We want them to be stained
By the nightly game

We've nightshifted into bats
Encouraging a nature nocturnal
It's like herding vampire cats
When the winged war is internal

Fall becomes Winter.
Time changes. Time rearranges.
Each season provides its own challenge.

A shaving becomes a beard.
The snow falls. The snow piles.
Snowballs gain momentum and grow.

A scratch becomes an ache.
I can't breathe. I can't swallow.
I won't last long but this will last forever.

The cold becomes pneumonia.
I have coughing fits. I have blockage.
Phlegm builds an island to be marooned upon.

Habitation becomes hibernation.
The animals escape. The animals sleep.
They wait for the light to shine on them once more.

Mitigation becomes migration.
The birds fly away. The birds fly South.
As they flee their wings push cold air down toward us.

Winter becomes Spring.
I have become someone else.
A man who has felt another Winter.

How do we fix this? What can we do?
The answer stands impatiently in front of humanity
echoing how each person must always become better
but then the question becomes
what is better?
Something learned along the way.

Time is fleeting
Winter is weaving
Coming and leaving
Stunning the seething
Gunning and bleeding
Running from needing
Honeys for breeding

The rabid and bitter
Look for a babysitter
But find Hades’ River
In a shady grifter

A timeline
Sidelined
By bribe buys
And tribe lies
Of pride cries
Decides why
Defiled guys
Have wild eyes
And exile ties
With bile tides
Of vile vies
For a piece of the pie

Those who worship aggression
Follow their idiotic impressions
From charismatic rally sessions
Of one-sided lessons
Based on dejection
Contracting an infection
Preventing self reflection
Halting their progression
With thought deflection
For emotional protection

So the recent challenger
Is the event calendar
Becoming a pal ender
For the scowl senders
Who’re foul lenders
Or growl at tender
Tower menders

My debt’s share
Of fresh air
In death’s snare
Is best spared
But pests stare
With test glares
So I get scared
And let blare
My fret fair
Nightmare

This emergency
Of an inferno sea
Must be urgently
Purged from me
So I can see
The way to be
Hate free
And not flee
From interacting

But the clients and buyers
Are tyrants and liars
While times are dire
The pirates set fire
And hydrants retire
As the world perspires
And starts to expire
The heart of the empire
Has parked the choir
And sparked this mire
Into a funeral pyre

So I can only hope
This lycanthrope
Likened trope
Will not poke
The bear we host
Who cares the most
Of the scares of ghosts

This reason to sell
Season of hell
Treasonous spell
Deletes the smell
Of seeds that fell
Who need to tell
Their creed is well
Yet we see the intel
Warning they’re bitter incels

The dimmer mention
The sinners’ tensions
And interventions
As an interception
Of their own reflection
Not passing inspection
Like a class in detention
They mask their perception
With political inventions
To explain the inception
Of their constant deception

Alone without friends
They follow the trends
Of political bends
As they like to pretend
They’re here to defend
But our country descends
Into a dead end
Of a red blend
When the ref spends
All his time deafened

I'm sorry to say
Things didn't go your way
Chalk it up as dues to pay
Just please don't lose your faith
You must wrestle sin
Don't let it in
Or let it win
Or you'll get grim
On a lonely limb

Despite a deluge of hope
You yell lose and nope
You can't use a joke
Singing the blues to cope
24/7
You feel threatened
Before I finish my sentence
So our contact is lessened
Because your empathy deafened
Always puts me in second

You become negative
Ignoring relatives
You have hell to give
In the cell you live
Where it's dark
And barren
Bitterness is stark
And apparent

You expect me to save you
From what Satan gave you
But he's totally enslaved you
You need Jesus to bathe you
Because I see the same you
And will always blame you
Using a shame tool
To change fools

I hate to slice ties
But in your eyes belies
A sinister surprise
That'll bring my demise
That's sitting on ice
Precariously waiting to melt
To release your anger
So before any damage is dealt
I turn into a stranger

I have a light under my concrete
For others
It is fatally luminous
So it must be contained
I relegate rays to the darkest depths
So no light may exit
But then you walked on my blacktop
And cracks started to form in my road
Light began to escape
You were fascinated
I was terrified
Because the more you traversed my pavement
The further my road split
Brilliant flashes with increasing frequency surfaced
Your curiosities were piqued
Mine were plagued
By what lies underneath
And when it would blind you

I tried to warn you from inside my cocoon
You said you'd purchase sunglasses
You never understood
This light
Shatters glass like Stone Cold Steve Austin
It's intensity is a stunner
It may be the Sun itself
But you insisted on continuing
To travel down this path

As models import wrinkles
Potholes become sinkholes
Fears were realized
Senses overwhelmed
Skin burned
Blackened
Into something unrecognizable
As all signs of life fade
I'm stranded on a crumbled road
With only sightless cadavers to lead me home

You undersell me
And overwhelm me
Your lovely tidal wave
Cuts like a bridal blade
Your knife slices so deep
It drags on my bone
Your knife must meet sheath
For me to find home

Your blade
Is high grade
So sharply acute
It cuts all roots
I didn't realize emotions went this deep
You use your blade to slaughter sheep
If they don't survive your brain surgery
Or your engrained perjury

You're the blade
But you don't hunt vampires
I want you to stay
And light my heart's fire
Don't Wesley snipe at me
Or point your knife at me
Just hold me
So I forget the old me
Cut out what you don't like
Until I made only of light
The process is painful
But you change me
Cut from every angle
You rearrange me
You make improvements
By cutting grooves in

I'm so afraid I may disappoint you
Because I have already anointed you
My king
I wear your ring
That severs my fingers
Making me useless
When so much love lingers
But I can't prove this
There is a ****** blade at my throat
While our love precariously floats

Relationships need trust and honesty
I need to trust you're honest with yourself
but you got me grappling and groveling
every time I loosen my belt
your face starts to melt
pulling shame off the shelf
your blame takes my health.

Too many accusations
too much blame
I experience saturation
in your flame
of toxic guilt
with which I'm filled
from the oil you spill
on a torn canvas
like a praying mantis
straining my bandwidth
until I can't sit and demand this
**** sandwich no longer be brandished.

You blame me for everything
even when you're wrong
you look at every sting
as a planted bomb
**** I'm gone
the lamb I'm on
from your grand ole song
I'm a handled hog
freed from a damaged log.

You're always right
like the hand I ******* with
without you in sight
I'm bound to my coffin.

We live in the unlighted state of America
Where what happens when we turn the lights off
Is dealt with darkness
And matters of delicate touch
Are treated with sharpness
When our only language
Is to inflict anguish
We cut connections in the bedroom
To clear our cynical head room
For contempt and judgement

People looking for a feeling to fall into
Or a reason to live
Must face frigid climates
When the public invades privacy
And ill fated ****** exploits
Pervade salacious tabloids
Our ****** regrets
Cut the deepest
Society reaps them
Sowing us together with resentment
We provide each other with relief
But not the relief we're looking for
We give each other hours of relief
Until those useless hours become days
And those fruitless days become years
That engender endless tears
As it remains warm in our car
But the winter outside freezes anything that breaks the plane
And our air conditioning only helps so much
When the spinning wheels are in our faces

There is a national coverage in the media
That presents a bleak picture of the ****** health of America
I feel I sit somewhere in between
*** offenders and a disgusted public
When I observe the observers
Who are too scared shitless to ever face their own emotions
Judge those for overindulging in their emotions
They lived their life in fear and safety
So they could be the righteous ones
To admonish the risk takers and mistake makers
Yet they are of the least value to humanity
They're the people who grade all your answers as incorrect
Without providing their perfect alternatives
While trying to erase the context
Because of what the context has to say about society
People feeling that they can never be emotionally vulnerable
Until they experience sheer desperation
And no dollar contract
Can replace human contact
Yet we give men so much money and power
And ask them to feel fine in our cold shower
Until we are soiled by their intention
A nation committed to selling Stella Artois
A nation full of Blanche DuBois

Humanity folds in on itself
When we attack with ***
Humanity does itself a disservice
By not trying to understand these attacks honestly
We forsake forgiveness
And embrace desperation
Until we become unbearably desperate
For attention
For approval
For ****** contact
For money
For validation
And sometimes our desperate desires become tangled
I'd like to think of that as love
And not a meeting between two practical rapists
That conjoin in the middle
Yet somehow come out distorted on the other side

During the winter weeks
everything looks bleak
so I can hardly speak
looking to out-sleep
this subzero streak
of record lows
and checkered toes
from blizzard blows
the geese all go
but I stall froze
in this tundra tunnel
where the water breaks
must be signs of the shovel
and all it takes
to obfuscate
my massive lake's
frozen fate
and the cozen gate
for that chosen date.

I need to erase these bland hues
for leaves to sprout brand new
to brighten my ****** view
like I'm living in Cancun
chilling at Chichen Itza
chowing on chicken pizza
staring at the colorful sky
under which I never hide
but those are just colors in my mind
looking at the bleakness and the grime
I'm weakened by this time
I need to stay alive
to see the days get wide
and colors collide
releasing me from the darkness fog
so I won't be a heartless sod
after people start to dodge
my evil dark flaws.

Once the clouds split
they'll give me a gift
removing the ****
that makes me slip
on the ice all around me
covering the water in which I'm drowning
when my virulent vision starts browning
erasing positive colors and mentality.

This world will be less neutral
after my diffused old
infused soul
find renewal
in the sun's jewels
creating more vibrant colors
than the winter's covers
of black and white
with lack of light
and saddened sight
to mask what's right.

Once the sun brings back the day
I'll put down my gun and come out to play
but life isn't fun living this way.

Their lives bleed into mine
What am I becoming?
As long as I'm bleeding in line
I can hear war drums drumming
I feel my purity and youth leave me
As their lack of couth feeds me
And their sweet tooth bleeds me
Until eventually I too am greedy

In this ****** atmosphere
Our ***** past is clear
Inspiring future fears
And hardened tears
Drowned by beers
And empty cheers
Through the years
Until we're here
As a ****** stranger
Head banger
Teenager
In Jesus' manger

This blight
Of life
As a simulation
Of assimilation
Into a nation
Of incineration
In a ****** mire
Lit by the fire
Positioned higher
I call my sire

I fidget in the cage
Of this pivotal maze
Called the Digital Age
I'm in need of healing
From this dark feeling
That I'm an innocent child reading
A book about a grown man bleeding
Always met with a hateful greeting
While sympathy is fleeting
Being replaced by our own jadedness
After living with those who hated us
We develop defensive thorns
Resembling demonic horns
To match public scorns

My first love
Drew first blood
And I couldn't halt the blood loss
Exacerbated by the mud toss
Of the sinister town crier
Exposing my heart's desires
So I said never again
For the bleeding to stop
When dealing with men
Is like meeting the cops
Aware that I'm defenseless
They start beating me senseless
So I become a judge myself
Part of the sludge for my health
I won't budge unless it's for wealth
Accepting the cards I was dealt

They bled into me
Now red is all I see
No way to get free
So I follow their lead
And choose to bleed
As they pray and plead
It becomes my turn
To cause the burns
That I had learned
When I was spurned
And lost my purity
Now blood cures me

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

We are at the mercy of blood alchemists. They turn lead into gold and war into paper. Their sacrifice based sorcery transmutes our possessions into theirs. They just need death in the equation as well as our placation.

The blood alchemists defeated the defensive zealots to establish a new leader. Their new leader had devised a formula for turning bigotry into power at the expense of sanity. He crafted a potion to control the minds of the malleable that poisoned his brain with paranoid fantasies.

In the fascist alchemist's perception, all protesters become demons in need of exorcism. Transformers and electromagnetic waves carry his insane demands to Ukraine. He demands the death of a statesman expressing contention. This is the formula for turning dissent into fear. This is the concoction that turns power into silence, he seeks to suffocate his enemies in dirt.

Followers of the fascist alchemist believe he's a god who can do no wrong. Townspeople see through this facade trying to explain he's flawed to mind controlled dogs. His spell is stubborn so citizens start sticking to strife after he obfuscates what's wrong and right while a politician's life hangs in the balance.

Conflict is conformed into cover as he uses fear of the other so subjects won't see his gunners killing our Yemeni brothers. He buries our problems in dust, that once unsettled, erupts into a noise so loud we can't call him corrupt. Ignoring the will of man he'll even **** his clan if they still his plans. His henchmen drenched in blood are as expendable as the foes he shoves. Summoning a power vacuum, a portal to autonomy, all the cronies crammed in his chaos cabinet are ****** out one by one.

So this attempted assassination is the final straw once the magistrate catches wind of his shockwave sins. The blood alchemist must attend a hearing where enemies and allies alike adjudicate his egregious actions. The hearing will be dictated by what seers see for our future. The verdict will be determined by the brain washed judging the brain washer. Before dissent could materialize into resistance, the blood alchemists slowly eroded justice until a force field formed to protect the trickster's horns.

Deep underwater
we blow unwilling bubbles
pockets of blue air

You act callously crude
Like Cronenberg's brood
You keep the body horror
In the naughty drawer
I feel my body's poorer
So you convince me I'm rich
Then treat me like an itch
And scratch
To detach

You invited me to your chateau
Then left me on this plateau
For my beating heart exploded from my chest
Once I foolishly entered your nasty nest
There I lay
As immobile prey
My body was infected
By your touch
And my mind dissected
Way too much

You passionately present me with body horror
I really resent you for being a shoddy sawyer
Cutting me down but not completely
Your lackluster love travels obliquely
Dislocating my horrified heart
My rib cage begins to part
As my mangled love
Escapes with my blood
My fingers are breaking
Trying to carry the relationship
Happiness I'm faking
When you crack your elation whip

When I'm powerless to the *****
I become showerless in a hurry
And my skin starts to rot
While I lie on your cold cot
You're my unforgiving cop
And the horrors never stop

I'm sad and I don't know why
Could it be that I steal and lie?
I say it's what I do to get by
While I still think I'm right
So I still need an explanation
For this depression's duration
I give my mind placation
With useless information
Which gives me frustration
While I yearn for elation

I put the focus on my brain chemistry
So people won't think less of me
For not living blessedly
From the lessons seen
That I ignored indeed
Like my aborted dreams
That were thwarted into steam
Once I found my neurological stream
Could take the blame for all that I've been

I have low serotonin
I have low dopamine
I feel the power of Odin
Choking me
And I can't see
Through the freeze
Of countless needs
That are unwatered seeds

I'm depressed
I'm bipolar
I regress
Into disorders
I use to put up borders
Or beg for quarters

A new age way
Of shirking my responsibility
I am my brain
I must own the emotions filling me
If I want to escape depression willingly
I must face it head-on until I'm free
But I don't follow those who lead
So I continue to be
Depressing

I ignore finding purpose
Or answering a calling
My only searches
Are for pills falling
Off the doctor's dolly

What's in my mental
Makes me special
But I'm disheveled
So I befriend the devil
On this lonely level
Where I solemnly settle

I think other people are lying
About how much they're crying
Because they seem like they're trying
While all I'm doing is sighing
At their pain I'm denying

The more people diagnosed with depression
The less of an individual it makes me
So I rationalize they haven't learned a lesson
And lives I'd love to be trading
Because all I'm doing is skating
While giving others' lives ratings
Comparing them to my rabies
I'm melodramatically exacerbating

Other people transform
I stick to the norm
Convinced I'm deformed
Not from the storm
But from when I was born

I want your sympathy
Not your help
Any advice you give to me
I'll put on the shelf
Sarcastically saying "Thanks I'm cured"
Because I think my negativity is truer
Than anything newer
Like your positivity
I rebuffed unwittingly
Because I'm miserable
And can't handle the truth
So it hurts so visceral
When you call me uncouth
But I'm not a sleuth
So I blame it all on youth
And the rest of your troops
Separated from my toxic loop

So I isolate myself
And get depressed even more
I blame my mental health
As I fall short of the shore
With opportunities galore
Yet all I can do is snore
And think of who I was before
Modern psychology implored
A brain chemistry war

I wish I could take everything true about the world
and put that into a gun to shoot into the youth of America
but I guess they're already receiving a satisfactory education
when normal bullets teach us all we really need to know.

Life is full of wonder and curiosity as a small child. My eyes see. My tongue tastes. My fingers feel. My fingers feel as much as they can hold. One day my fingers feel a pepper. I'm fascinated by its texture. I roll it around in my hand to try to understand this wondrous world and its glorious gifts.

The pepper's provided productive perplexing pondering but I'm done with it now. Once set down I feel a twitch from an itch in my eyes that see. Eyes don't see my fingers as spicy. Fingers don't feel the pain that resides within them. Ears don't hear the silent marauders invading the grooves of my fingerprints. Satisfying my itch is my instinctive reaction. I'm in for a painful surprise once fingers meet eyes.

All I see is pain. All I feel is pain.
Disorienting pain that makes me sink to the floor. The cold linoleum offers no solace for the hellfire in my eyes. Blind and lost, wandering through agony, father picks me up. I can sense the hands that crafted and nurtured me. He is the solver and thus, will solve my pain. The jubilation of rescue is washed away as he shoves me under a running faucet. Surely, he has betrayed me. Surely, he is trying to ****** me. He throws me into a waterfall and asks me to swim up it.  Between sputtering out water and trying to turn away I feel panicked anger. He created me yet he gives me pain and death? I curse him in my wrath. After hope has been lost the warmth of healing comforts my eyes. The turbulent waves I thought I was drowning in were actually washing the brimstone from my eyes. Father forgives my curses as he forgives all things. Yet, I feel guilt for my lack of loyalty. If I cursed him while he actively rescued me, what will I do when the time comes to fight for him?

I don't know if it's a deity
or the DMT
DMing me
that it's my enemy
and that it sent me this
feeling of emptiness
in blank fields with no flowers
or green grass
just concrete towers
and broken glass
digging into my feet
agony during delete
dragging me to a steep
cliffside leap
this gift I reap
and drift to sleep
until I can't leave
the unending sea
bending me
its entropy
entering
like a centipede
frenetically
slinking down my spine
like a vulpine down a vine
no wine
or ****
can slow down its speed
no way to impede
what makes me bleed
which makes me seethe
seething to believe
there's nothing underneath
my broken glass feet
just an ash heap
I'll see lastly
before passing.

Driving down the road
I came across a buck
A superior physical specimen
I understood
If I came across this beast in the wild
It could savagely ****** me
I also understood
Because I had a car this animal was actually afraid of me
High school was an interesting time

I started on the rooftop
The empty sky above was all I had
And all I needed
It was pure
Like a blank page
Waiting for a story to be written
But at the first sight of clouds
I fled to the top floor

There were fun and simple things on the top floor
Like Pokémon games
I got red, white, and blue
The monsters seemed so banal and repetitive
But nobody else would acknowledge it
Sending me into a dragon's rage
I tried using flamethrower on Charmander
Ending in futility as I ran out of burn heals
I looked out the window in frustration
Rain was falling outside
Inside
Patriotism was buffeted by the hail
So I devolved into a lower level

Going further down this building
For ***** and giggles
I found more ****
Less giggles
On a floor with a TV displaying the news
I was eager to learn about the world
Only to learn everybody hates each other
And nobody talks
Or cares
And the smartest person in the room
Is the one I agree with the most
Unable to view the tokens in my mind
As anything less than treasure
And those who try to persuade me otherwise
Are thieves
My spite steals tranquility
Like the persistent storm outside
My solution is shelter in lower levels

My experimentation on communication
With the general population
Had rained on my playful parade
But I felt very comfortable on a floor with friends
Until they saw through my charade
Discovering my emotions in disarray
As the people who made me love this building
Made me curse it's walls the more I loved them
I searched for the peaceful embrace of solitude
Once the storm outside transformed into a typhoon

I found that solitude
In a tiny bare room
With a syringe and spoon
I was unaware
That room was an elevator
That lowered me down the concrete void
As the hurricane outside rattled me violently inside my box
Trapped and lacking all agency
I resigned myself to wherever the elevator chose to take me

After the elevator finished pulling me into the basement
The tsunami seemed to cease
But I was buried under debris
I had to burrow out of my tomb
The dig was tedious and *****
My perseverance was heroic
But triumph was thwarted
When I reached the surface
To discover only wreckage remained
And when I looked up
I saw the building I inhabited
It's damaged facade
Made it clear
I would never visit those floors I missed on the elevator

Above my building
Hangs an empty sky
It's purity is a lie
The page was never blank
Just constantly written on and erased
To lure innocent readers into a tome

Society moves like a bullet
And there's no way to cool it
We're not big fans of reflection
So we become slaves to deflection
Bouncing off of hard surfaces
Like limiting gun purchases
Constriction isn't part of or vocabulary
Proliferation is all we know
Watching weapon supplies grow

I live in a country
Riddled by bullets
Bullets that blast through our ****** body
Though the holes in our mind are bigger
When we can **** those we think are naughty
We become judges when we pull the trigger
But the media makes mountains out of molehills
And it is for those exaggerated reasons we ****

We are stuck in a bullet storm
When TV advertises bullet ****
This helps make bullets the norm
So we treat mass shootings with a familiarity
Because we can't acknowledge the only similarity
Is obviously the gun
We're blinded by the sun
Of defense contractors
They're negative reactors
When we purpose a change
The conversation they rearrange
By firing in every possible direction
This is the aforementioned deflection
And it works
You can tell because people are dying
Or standing in the street crying
Or watching the news sighing

Bullet time has wooed us
Bullet crimes have moved us
There are people who gain wealth
From our diminishing health
They hold society on their rope
And the only way we can cope
Is to ****** that rope from their greedy grasp and pull it
But that's hard to do while being punctured by bullets

There’s an online article with a bullet point of cities
• to which the bullet pointed
underneath those cities is a bullet point of schools
• to which the bullet pointed
underneath those schools is a bullet point of names
• to which the bullet pointed.

Underneath that article is a bullet point of comments
• from which bullets point
underneath those comments are bullet points of discourse
• from which bullets point
underneath that discourse lies our nature
• from which bullets point.

Burdened hands
with bird in hand
burn in demand
to burgeon man
he lays still
reading the playbill
drinking his DayQuill
unable to change will
burdened hands crave ****
burdened mind shame filled
burdened time grave hill
burdensome brains spill.

Frozen and packaged
then pulled out and ravaged

put on the grill
to give them their fill

flipped and fried
on the more tender side

pressed against the surface
for a convenient purchase

throw in some sauce
to cover up the flaws

put in a bag
that’s easy to grab

eaten and discarded
as someone jokes that they farted.

I come out of the oven
Joining a witch's coven
I am born
I must live
So forlorn
I must give
My heart and soul
For pieces of gold
Until I am buried
In the pieces I carry

I could tell by the smell
You were a bat out of hell
Using echolocation
To sense simple vibrations
Buried under my rib cage
You gave me hope
That I'd die of old age
And not on a rope

Good things come
Good things go
I look for the sun
Buried in snow
How have things gotten this low?
I convince myself I don't know
While I watch you disappearing
From people interfering
The pain is searing
And all I'm hearing

From the womb to the tomb
Buried in diminishing room
By the dark clouds that loom
They form a lightning storm
At first it feels warm
But then rain starts to gather
And Earth is flooded
So I'm pushed down the ladder
By the cold blooded
Until I can find no peace
Only grease
To keep moving faster
So I can be an outlaster
And laugh at the unmarked graves
Of those that made me feel shame

I was born with fire in my heart
It was a funeral pyre from the start

My brother and I explored a ravine
in our younger years. A wooded
labyrinth where the auburn
mist of fallen leaves
covered the floor
like a Burmese
tiger pit.

My brother
and I discovered
a lake, which became
a creek, which became
a swamp. I must've found
something exciting, because
I began sprinting homeward in a
juvenile fervor. Penetrating the
leafy shroud with my eager
feet. Unaware of traps
set subtly for those
tramping  through
the wilderness.

A nail,
I stepped
on a nail in my
recklessness. My
tennis shoe armor proved
futile against the steel weaponry.
Completely exposing my vulnerable
sole, the spiked interloper sank
its lone fang into me. The
pain shot through my
foot until ambulatory
abilities all but
vanished.

I didn't watch
where I was stepping
and landed on an inadvertent
weapon.
I should've
known the pollution of man
would stab me in my
outstretched hand.

A lesson was
learned about
paranoia and why
it exists. Even if I watch
where I'm going, polluters
will slit my wrists until the findings
of the swamp are forgotten in favor of scars.

There are cracks in the pavement
messages the grave sent
the dead are beyond containment
escaping earthly enslavement.

Their absence in the adytum
brought by the *******'s gun
leaves a black star sun
burning the master's son.

He's burning alive
he's burning to die
he's burning so I
burn one and sigh.

The burnt coal
on my burnt soul
burnt whole
until cold.

I heard on the news
there is a cream cheese shortage
now I want cream cheese

Just me
No entertainment
No stimulation
Just me
Then you came by
And installed a cable
Sports, politics, comedy, education
You had a very decent package
500 channels to show me the world
I figured I'd stay home for the rest of my life
And enjoy the romComcast upon me
By the advent of your cables

But there was a destructive storm
Power lines were snapped
And our cable went out
As I stood in the ruins
Of a house that once stood majestic
All I worried about was getting our cable re-installed
So I waited
On your ****** service
My age
Became a Time Warner
And severed strings
Were strewn on the steel scattered around me

Now that I've become a satellite in your life
I could provide you with all the same channels
If you'd just look up
But the cumulus clouds you conjure
Block our reception

As I drift out here in space
I can see everybody on Earth
Except for one man
Who's surrounded by a sea of swirling tsunamis
And a crowd of cut cords
And as I approach the chaos for a better view
I'm incinerated entering his atmosphere

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.

I thought your love for me was a form of animal husbandry
but after two humps
you became the camel that broke the straw’s back.

There was a light I was trying to find
in the darkness to which I was consigned
when I saw your candle floating in the nether
until then I thought I might be blind
succumbing to a manic mind
once we got together
a most glorious endeavor
for a bit of time
things couldn't get better
then everything died.

I saw a soul in a machine
I saw more than you'd believe
just from your candle glow
just before the wind would blow
I'd see you twisting
in gusts blistering
before taking off like a kite
flying into the perilous night.

You left me hanging
like the voluminous
cumulus
clouds above me
looking so lovely
thunder banging
becoming a sun screen
and it won't stop raining
inching into the umpteens
with no way of draining
and me still looking for something.

I guess I shouldn't be so easily triggered
knowing the time we spent
was just for rent
my text no longer says sent but delivered
so I wonder where you went
leaving me here to wither
I thought you were a giver
but now I lie alone to shiver
in the cold draft of my bedroom
your presence in my head looms
like an undead's tomb
living without life
just dread and doom
without you
just maybe mights
through Hades nights
with heavy gloom
under a shady kite
for which I've lost the handle
I was looking for light
and you gave me just a candle.

If alcohol is a crutch for one's brain
then narcotic pills are a candy cane
not if you're looking to manage pain
(although those intentions can change)
but to hop on the sugar rush train
just know once the pez dispenser is drained
you'll have to walk all the same
after the sugar train sugar crashes
and you must escape the sugar ashes
of a powder overload
that people confuse with blow because you explode
once your sweet tooth is exposed
you can barely speak because that's all that's left of your teeth
and your only way of relief
is atop a pixie stick peak
surrounded by a cocoa ocean
perpetuating turbulent motion
so you look for sugarless lifesavers
like that's asking a light favor
after you spited neighbors
over candy flavors
but now you need their help to walk
they'll think you're nothing but talk
because you thought your cane was the kind used by pimps
but take it away and watch how you limp.

I'm on the run
And not for fun
The police are chasing
My heart is racing
When my life is at stake
My morality I'll break

The police release the hounds
I can hear their deadly sounds
They want to maim me
I want to stay me
I decide to fight the charging canines
Because I just snorted a ******* line
My judgement loses length
To my influx of strength
I break the dogs' legs
Until they beg
That's not enough
Sorry Scruff
The steel gun I fire
A furry cop retired

The police attack me
For defending myself
They refuse to see
The danger to my health
They chose to use crazy canines
So I feel the fault isn't mine
That doesn't change their decision
For me to die slowly in prison
I am in the teeth of the government
Much to my human wonderment
This is the way I'll spend the rest of my life
For the decisions I made at the end of a knife

The irony is cops **** dogs all the time
Yet they obstruct their vision of the line
Where it ceases to be man versus society
And becomes man versus nature
When a man is in peril
He must turn feral
But in a country that blindly idolizes aggression
The police don't acknowledge this discretion
They dig their teeth into our skin
While draining us financially
The only way we'll ever win
Is if things change substantially
Sadism fervently fuels the flames of conflict
With an exasperated public sick of being kicked
Cruelty is what they witness
To lose their mental fitness
How can they protect their babies
When the police have rabies?
The police relationship with the effected public will never shift
When there's a Cereberus between them maintaining the rift

I need to find a job
But I’m told I’m flawed
No one will ever applaud
When I’m so far from God
So I hate them and Him
I start selling bags of trim
To become more grim
Than both of their whims

I turn teens into fiends
With no financial means
Forgetting their dreams
To buy my beans
They ransack homes
For permanent loans
Of turbulent tones
To pay my bill
And get their fill
Of pills that thrill
Leaving them still

My cardiac attack
******* packed
Cadillac
Drifts for twelve hour shifts
Driving families to cliffs
Of drug addled rifts
Until I’m mentioned
In interventions
Bringing attention
To my dimension

The cops are behind me
Can they find me
Through the facade I’m designing?
I’m a drug dealer hiding
From society’s bindings
I don’t make a single sound
Once they release the hounds
Searching for those I’ve bound
In my lost and found
They’re just doing their jobs
And so am I
Playing the odds
For a piece of the pie

I’m addicted to the danger
And exploiting strangers
To channel my anger
Into buying a hangar
But white blood cells have been released
Trying to cure my malignant disease
With aggressively insistent antibodies
That won’t let me do as I please

Should I listen to my town
When they’ve always had frowns
And always let me down?
I turn around
Showing them my back
And the piece I pack
If they choose to attack
The bodies will stack

There’s nothing they can say
I’m entrenched in my ways
I can’t see through the haze
Of this capitalist maze
Where I was raised
To look out for myself
By building my wealth
And ignoring the health
Of those hit by my belt

I live in a world
Where we pet deer with cars
So we set our emotions in jars
The cops drive with broken headlights
And nobody knows what's right
Yet we're not allowed to fuss
Because we're on a prison bus
So I dream of the days
I'll get to see the freeway

You got in my car
That didn't go far
You decided to call a taxi
Because I was so taxing
I got under your skin like a cyst
And I became your taxidermist

You jumped in my town car
That became a clown car
You made me feel like a star
And then left me on Mars
Where I lived out the back of my hearse
Patiently waiting for a compatible nurse

I found myself in an ambulance
Withdrawing from all your medicine
I couldn't get out of the trance
Your bulldozer left me embedded in
After being rolled in the muck
I became a monster truck

I wish you were a convertible
So I could at least get a nibble
For you handle a road of ugliness with grace
It's the same daunting road I cowardly face
We just can't travel together
That's how we'll travel forever
I just wish you could know
The places my car will go

Fasten your seatbelts
For the ice the heat melts
Will be dealt
We’ll receive welts
From Earth’s belt
Her pain will be felt

Crazy cancer
Lazy dancers
Don’t have answers
But as enchanters
Conjure banter
Of absurd slander
And crowd panders
To darken lanterns

Flooding the gate
Money to make
Muddies the stakes
So they act fake
To catch a break
Becoming snakes
With stunning rakes
For nature’s ****

Carbon emission
Cancer remission
In need of incisions
To heal our decisions
Yet denied permission
By a wealthy commission
Utilizing superstition
And pure fiction
To ensure friction
Fueling oil addiction

The hurricanes
Assuring pain
Are curing stains
Of carbon shame
Until what remains
Stays in nature’s lane

I hide in dreams
From Poseidon’s screams
At polluted streams
From brutish teams
Of the crudest greed

To break our code of mourning
We need the noble forming
A case for global warming
Against the vocal storming
Of the slogan storing
***** adoring
Public scorning

We need Atlas here
To fix the atmosphere
As those here
Impose fear
Against peers

Their success equals destruction
So acting responsibly is obstruction
Pushing the planet to an eruption
Of cataclysmic disruption
Due to cynical dysfunction

A tidal wave
Of vital days
To fix our maze
Sits in a haze
While we’re slaves
Digging graves
For the brave
In their way

This world is defiled quite
when the wildlife
try all night
to exile light.

A bunch of pompous pawprints
mark cacophonous coffins
where differing dolphins boxed in
fell to a bomb with topspin lobbed in.

The waxy ghosts
make flaxseed toast
while black sheep boast
that they’re lacking most.

The hyenas just laugh
at the beleaguered giraffe
sticking his neck in the path
of a snake oil salesman’s trap.

Now the derelict spiders
are perilous fighters
but carnivorous biters
lit them with lighters.

The alabaster wall
makes ever-after small
and lesser actors tall
through the collapse of all.

Now Cerberus
returns to us
as we burn to dust
for serpent trust.

So the deadened world is dismantled
like someone stepped on an ant hill
with a deafened anvil in a stampede standstill
because killing animals is the jaded man’s will.

I could've sworn I saw a younger version of you
going in the opposite direction on High Street
I wanted to stop and say something
But I had to die a gruesome death
It's just that you looked like the edition of you
I'm ashamed to have tainted
And we've been down this road before...

Like the time we saw that guy hit that telephone pole
I knelt in the muck with a stranger in my arms
His fleeting life transfixed me to his world
But once life returned
My interest was gone

Similar to the time I saw that fox dying in the street
I left the solitude of my car to gaze into it's primal eyes
Without communication
All we could do was cry together
I couldn't decide whether to **** it or care for it
So I did neither
And just drove off
I understand it may seem cowardly
But the thought of it living and continuing
to suffer and survive was too beautiful
And the thought of responsibly nurturing it was too repellent
Not to mention those things can be dangerous
no matter how small they appear
I guess what I'm saying is bad things happen when I leave my car
Usually, I drive with the windows up and the doors locked
Loneliness fills the cabin
I opened my doors but nobody entered
Only tears filled the cabin
They cascaded out onto the road
Forming ice in the subzero winds
I lost all control
And just before I crashed
I could've sworn I saw a younger version of you
going in the opposite direction on High Street

There's a dead cat on the road
second one this week
I shouldn't be writing about other people's dead cats
I should be writing about my own
passed away many years ago
still occupying my memory
even as people have come and gone
—mainly gone
I only come once everybody's gone
everybody comes once I'm gone
they move in next door
leaving dead cats for me to worry about
while speeding off
frustrating me with blatant recklessness
we hurt one another and feel remorse—
never changing we continue to do so
the speed limit goes lower
because we keep going faster
painting the road with deer and auto parts
the lines on the road become hard to see
when smoke is the only signal visible
all I can do is pull onto a shoulder
and curl up for a catnap.

I caterwauled down the catwalk
meowing and howling
to drown out the call of the void
letting the cats now I'm a catch
to be a pet they could pet
but once I saw the miles to the aisle
I ran way down the runway
setting a manifest for the planet next
unable to be able
to sit still on the window sill
and take in what I've taken on
staring at stars or caring about cars
I pick a solitary peak to perch
and look down on more content creatures.

Here comes The Change
That has the range
Of emotions
And demotions
And devotions
Of a perilous populous
That likes to raise a fuss
When they eventually learn who I am
And treat me like I'm the Son of Sam

To be specific
They discover I'm gay
And begin to filet
My mentality
In totality
For fatality
Merely by acting differently

If my sexuality isn't the first thing people know about me
I get to witness The Change
Like a dog with mange
I am shedding my hair
While screaming no fair
Because of the shift I see
Because of the **** I need
To make my heart bleed

There is a steady bellowing burdensome baggage
From those that want to ****** some *******
So I search for weight lifters
But only find shapeshifters
That become great grifters
When The Change occurs
And The Change burns
So The Change turned
Me into an interdimensional changeling
And an unintentional rage king
After they use words like flaming
Because the results are so draining
It becomes hard not to hate people
Who are inspired by hate steeples

They say I'm going to Hell
While I notice the smell
Of being buried in their banal ****
While they play their greatest hits
That are as unoriginal
As they are cynical
They say I'm a degenerate
An embarrassment
A parent's lament

I want to change into a carefree bird
Instead I stay in Hell with the herd
Wanting to escape like Lupin the Third
Rather than be oppressed like the Kurds
But there is no relief
Only re-grief
When changes aren't permanent
But The Change is

There's an illustration of my life
That will change your perspective
The picture is in my words
When the painting is what I choose to say
And the canvas is your mind
Whose textures I could never imagine
So I jump off a cliff blindfolded
Expecting to be changed once I land

You make me feel so stupid
When we play chess
The way you en passant all nonchalant
You chase me into castle
From there I watch you intently
The way the Russians watched Bobby Fischer
In his hotel room
But while I wait for a move to develop
I become the Boredest Spazsky
My mind in a stalemate
As I try to crush your Sicilian defenses
As much as I harangue
You leave me in zugzwang
Which confuses my feeble mind
For I may be a pawn
But I'm the king pawn
Which means the board usually revolves around me
But your queen takes that instantly
And I'm left in a fool's checkmate

I wish you could see things from my side of the board
You'd see how desperately I wanted the king
All the complex and unique obstacles in the way
But instead you just sit there
And laugh at me losing all my pieces trying to reach you