Smile when you're walking, boy
Smile when you hurt
Smile when you're feeling down
And when you feel like dirt

Smile when the sun is up
Smile when it rains
Smile like you mean it
So it takes away your pains

Smile all the time, my boy
Smile all the day
And someday when you're dead and gone
Those smiles will come back your way

Your face is lit up from the light on the screen
As you type on the only place you're ever seen
Press the control keys, make yourself jump
20 years crouching over gave your back a ****
You're following that woman with long flowing hair
High cheekbones, long ears, and she's going somewhere
You're led to a boat, though you've never been trained
To sail a three-masted beaut, it has been ingrained
For instructions are soon to pop before your eyes
With large flashing arrows hanging in the skies
You grasp at the rope and hoist up the anchor
And you turn to the woman to possibly thank her
She's there for a moment, but gone when you cough
The words in the air spell out: *She logged off

Clouds may blow past
But memories last
And the sun in this sky
Hears me wondering why
Today is the day when I realize the truth
That the young are wasting our youth
And the wind in my hair is the only one
That will blow in this moment with the sun
Every moment is its own and nothing shall repeat
All these inaccurate snippets, soon captured and neat
Compiled together, this scrapbook's our life
Whether glued with our tears or cut with a knife
All images, candid and raw and most honest
Our life under wraps is the one we wear on our wrist
For the whole world to see if they'd only look close
It's the version of life that is not shared the most
But this version is always the most needed read
For to know all the person is to know the whole deed

I stand and I tap my foot
(my last season's Prada shoes)
Because I get so tired
Of standing
In line

I wish that we all could exist on
Interconnected
Albeit separated planes
So we could see one another
But I could pass through you
And board the train
Five minutes sooner

I'm just so impatient
Because life's too short to be spent
Waiting in line
Crying over useless relationships
Riding planes
Going anywhere
I just need to be there
I just need you here
I need to be doing something
Not waiting for something to happen

You make me impatient
Because someday we'll be dead
And I want to live the hell out of life
Before that happens

listen to your rhythm, child
work it with the rhyme
and sew together a poem
for me

I hold a secret deep inside
(no, not syphilis)
I thought it might be false
But it's true and not a lie at all
And this causes a problem
So listen up and listen well
Just ignore all the signs you see
Because they'll lead you wrong
Just promise to try
Try and avoid the secret
Because it is a problem
If you would read its lore

Kick the kid, kick the kid
They all yell
They all scream
Circles of bloodthirsty vultures
Ready to dine on the misery of others
At the expense of both
The dignity of the attacker and the victim
His blood is on my shoes
My converse are stained now
Forever they will scream out
SHAME ON YOU, YOU ****
I don't want to be a monster
They are making me a monster
The world wants me to be a monster
I have to be a monster
To get by
I look down at him again
I don't want to kick him
But they keep shouting
I am so weak
Maybe if I kick him a little, they'll see how strong
I can be
kick
kickkickkick
kick
KICKKICKKICK
No more screaming
No more yelling
No more pulse
The crowd runs away
They leave me with my shame
And my stained shoes
And my victory
At least I have that
Victory

Here's some clay I molded well
And a note that's straight from hell
It just says "Live" and when I drop it
This gollum will wake up

He'll follow close my every order
Never teeter on the border
Of sentient thought because
I own him and he doesn't think at all

This gollum'll do the ***** deeds
Like taking out the ***** weeds
That filter through society
The people-poison of the earth

He'll invade your home as you did my mind
He'll make you leave the world behind
He'll take your head into his hand
And smash it down unto the land
As if to say, "Please taste the earth,
Substance of your death and of my birth"
The cyclic theory present now
He'll show you how to die

And when he's done and you are through
When my gollum's finished you
He'll emotionlessly tear through your guts
And with them, drag you through the street

Sleep tight, doll

I wonder what it's like in the ****
Of a pig
I think I will live there when I'm old
Because no one will look for me there

It hurts
Because I feel like I'm draining
The life
Out of you
Depleting what matters
Because I sure as hell don't
Stop loving me
All of you, please
It will only hurt us both
Because I'm not worth it

Beauty pageant queen
Had a sad, sad life
All her mother wanted
Was to live vicariously
Through a beautiful daughter
All her daughter wanted
Was a mother who loved her for who she was
And didn't care that she was lesbian
But her mother beat her until she submitted
Her will and her life
With words and insults
Thrown as spears into the heart of the innocent child
The beauty pageant queen walked the steps confidently
Ready to reap the greatest reward she had never known:
Freedom
And as her mother read the note
And as her feet swung inches from her mother's grieving head
And as the coroner's men came and took her away
And as the nation was thrown into an uproar over a woman they never knew
And as the people in the streets pointed fingers and called the queen a *****
And as her father heard the news in his second house with his new wife
And as the homeless man she was kind to on the corner took his grubby hat off in mourning
And as the press went wild and blew everything out of proportion and dehumanized her pain
The queen didn't care because she was free from the world
Because she was away from the pain
Because she was exposed for what she was
Because she was dead
And she didn't much care about anything
Not anymore

What does it all mean?
Someone once asked
I smiled to show
I don't know

I'm not sure you understand
Just exactly how I work
I'm not normal
But then, who is?
So let's put formality aside
Have at me, uncertified surgeon!
Let your knives peel back my skin!
Use your blades to cut the organs
So you'll see the stuff within
In my heart is the place where I keep the love
Protected from fiends who like vultures above
Wouldst dare to steal my sacred store
That will deplete forevermore
My liver is a strange one, and yet
You'd know what goes inside, I'd bet
Therein lies all the things I hate
Filtered from life and made to wait
Inside the liver, oh so dense
To keep the hate from the present tense
To keep it all just locked away
So I can try to be okay
Then in my lungs is icy air
That I breathed in, frozen, from your cold stare
I thought you were jesting your eyes must be wrong
But it turns out you meant it like that one Beatles' song
Because I truly did not realize
As I gazed deep into your eyes
Into the soul that just days before
You swore was mine, threw open doors
Your eyes this time would shut me out
What was this alienation about?
But I guess you just snapped and all loving stopped
You were still sane, but your toleration popped
Which is totally fine and I have no problem knowing
That these fractures and breaks had slowly been growing
But I thought if we tended the garden of love
And forgot all the issues I alluded above
That we'd be fine and could just carrry on
And though I still believed that you went and you're gone
So again, I say unto you, uncertified surgeon!
Cut deep into me and pull out my soul
My heart's been ripped out, why not seal the deal
*Tear out my soul with a smile and a flick
And stitch me back up with the thread of past wrongs
That each day I might look down and see
That what was done was done by me

Po is the kung fu master
He looked up to
Through a path
Of training and self-discovery
Maybe I
Can be
The magic I look up to
Through a path
Of training and self-discovery
And inspiration
And maybe just a touch
Of pixie dust

Please do not patronize me when I've done it already
Because the two actions compound on one another like atomic bombs
And I can't take the force
Can't take the heat
I'm not the Hulk
And I'm melting slowly inside already
I'm Chernoble
Fill me up with concrete
Cover the mistake with the plain gray of overlooking
Because maybe if w don't look at the mistake
The huge ******* disaster that we figured would happen
The huge scar left, the hole we tried to close
"It'll never happen to us" we said
"It'll never happen to anyone we know" we said
Yet here we are, I'm in here and you're out there
Looking sad because the pain you feel through empathy
Is just the self projection your selfconscience made me into
The extension of yourself
You're sad because I am you
[Hypocrite.]
But that's okay, because that's society
We act as one trying to avoid being the one while claiming we are ONE searching for The One
We are all hypocrites living in the gray of overlooking
The gray matter where electroshocks go off telling us in binary that we are the superior mind
Nothing else will master us
"We are invincible" says the idiot
"We are magnificent" says the optimist
"We are human"
Because we are
We are all human
Though that word is over-used and tied to a defiant and apologetic connotation
Like an excuse we were born to give
Because society wears the coat that says "No Excuses"
But the pockets are filled with slips of paper saying things like:
"I'm just one person"
"I didn't know"
"It seemed good at the time"
We are all suckers about something once
So don't patronize me
Don't patronize my actions
When I give a streetlight a serenade
Kneeling like my leg was taken by a hand grenade
Gesturing out like a grand wedding proposal
Using all the arm length at my disposal
Don't patronize and judge
When my eyes don't budge
Maybe the cloud really is that interesting
The cloud in the gray of overlooking
That overlooks us all
That overlooks everything
Like a reverse oxygen mask
It never felt so good
To suffocate

It's not that I'm trying
To be flashy
and show off
that I have a few dollars

It's not that I'm trying
to appear better
than anyone else
by not asking for favors

It's just that I hate
being in debt
to anyone
in any way
and I want people to know
That I don't give a **** about money
You don't owe me
anything
unless I casually remind you
But I generally won't

So stop trying to pay me back
please

I know that they're for me
These cookies and iced tea
You set them on a plate
Gotta say, you're looking great
But I came here just for food
And I hope that isn't rude
All these candles by the door
Can I ask you what they're for?
Oh my goodness dear, please no!
Now I've really got to go
Let me out. Unlock this room!
I don't want to be the groom!

Gotta get out
Of my sock drawer
And into the hats
Cause that's how you get
A head

What do you call people endearingly?
Sugar
Honey
Dumpling
Lemon Meringue Pie
I get hungry thinking of things to call her
Love
Babe
Baby
Darling
Am I being old-fashioned? Do people still speak this way?
My dark angel
Mon cherie
Deliciae meae
Dove
Doll
What to say?

Sometimes I read things that make me tear up
Or see things that make me sad
Or hear bits of conversations
Half-chewed sentences thrown from over-thought
Tragedies
That make me just want to take people into my arms
And hold them close forever
And be their scapegoat
Their Atlas
Their lighthouse
Their pin drop of light in the sky of darkness and despair
And false hope
"Hit me" I want to say
"Take the pain and the hate out on me
I can take it."
I want to say this, even if I can't
I want them to feel love
The love that I feel for them
The love they think does not exist for them
That exists in my heart
"Ask me if I love you" I want to challenge
"Ask me if I care. Don't even think of ending
Don't think of taking your life
Who will I give hugs to then?"
I want to be everywhere at once
Hugging all the hurt people I don't know
Making them feel a little better
Even when the universe takes a **** on their life
I want to be their Batman
Anonymous and protective
I just want them to know; the hurt
And the broken
The sad
And the ones with beauty they can't see
The angry
And those who feel unwanted
I want them to know
That my hugs are free
And I mean every hug I ever give
Even if the recipient doesn't know it
I mean every single one
Virtual hug
Feel better please

Joey Comeau
Writes things I sometimes don't understand
They're like little bones in a tiny
Bat skeleton
I don't know what they mean
Or what they do
Or how they fit in the whole scheme of things
But they make me feel powerful
And that's mostly good

Joey writes sentences that start with
"I want to"
And end with things like
"Break into an old lady's house and tell her I am the FBI"
He writes sentences that make me think
Of all the things I want to do
I want to crash my private helicopter
Into the side of a mountain
But escape just in time
I want to write like Joey
Simple sentences that hold the world in their hands
And crush it a little
Just because

Stephen King
Writes books that sometimes scare me
Right back to the second trimester
Right back to fetal position in the womb
But he tells the stories so well
The actions are so true
I believe them all
And I know I'd never be the hero in a horror story
(I'll be dead in the first twenty minutes of the film)
But I get excited at the prospect of reading
Because it requires less running on my part

Stephen wrote of his drug addiction
And his mom's cancer
And his ****** jobs
And his alcoholism
And his multiple failures before his success
And his loving wife
And it made me think
That even though I'm an itty bitty little person
With but one life to give for this universe
Maybe, just maybe
I can make it
In some scheme of things

Oh candid life
So stark and raw
Beauty plain in sight
The images of a life enjoyed
Pasted in the papier-mache places of the mind
The finger paints
The doodles and scrawls
The graffiti and love letters
Smiles and silly faces
Open your eyes and see what we see
Ridiculous images
Well-enjoyed and unplanned
Emotion plastered and thought riddled
Life
Stark and raw

They say I'm lazy and unmotivated
That I don't apply myself fully
What they fail to say is that
I'm trying to cope
With the drowning feeling of
Depression
With the thought
That I'm a worthless ****
With the idea that I'm wasting my life
And that I may just be potential
Nothing more
They forget to say these things
But I don't hold it against them

"I must admit," said the man in Red
As he bit into a burning
Apple
He had just picked off the
Tree of humanity
"The taste of
Insanity
Is not an acquired taste.
It's accepted almost immediately"
He held the burning core up to his
Soulless
Eyes
And smiled a smile that was so
Hideous
That words
Cannot describe it.
"Though it is not accepted
As readily as a mother's breast,
Some would cling
Longer and
Tighter
To the
Buoyant anchor of insanity
Than the nurturing flesh
Of the mother."

How openly we forget
When memory is not maintained
The truths and lies and promises
Of past are not contained

How solemnly we drink
The spoils of our plunder
The feelings acquired
Before fate tore us asunder

And when the door cracks open
The sun will light upon my skin
I will suddenly be lifted
From the depth where I have been

I shall take my hat in hand
And alight from yonder stair
I shall throw the window open
And sing out without care

For the darkness cannot hold me
I've escaped from it before
And the lifting of the light begins
When you open my door

The smiles we fake
The measures we take
To ensure that the others don't see
Though my heart will break
For you it will ache
For as always
It will betray me

His eyes never blink as he watches the scene
Of the desolate landscape below
The recklessness reeks and the actions are mean
And Doc T. J. Eckleberg knows

The cruelness of people whose hearts are undone
By the stark disconnection therein
A fight against apathy can seldom be won
But they simply did not try to win

Let's smirk at this farce
We know the whole act
We've done this so long
All the moves are a dance

We two stand alone
Performing for none
The moon overhead
Lights the stage underfoot

Standing beside you
I feel complete
We both know I'm broken
But here I can fake it

No one but us
Knows what this is
It's not quite real
And not quite... not

The purple dancer runs along
With ashen streamer flowing
It tails the dancer as the song
Climaxes, ever knowing

The moves are clear, concise, complete
And audience views the tale
The streamer obeys eager feet
The dancer does not fail

The purple dancer's feet attack
And lovingly embrace
The floor of fibrous white in stack
The medium of this place

And when at last the dance is done
The ashen streamer taken
Illumination: Mind has won
And through this, world has shaken

I never have felt the pain of a sunrise
Or the sad sad feeling
Of the birth of a child
I haven't seen the sorry image
Of an old couple
Holding hands
I haven't tasted the agony
Of a fresh-baked
Chocolate chip cookie
I haven't seen or felt or tasted any of these things
Because beauty is everwhere
Filling up the world
With all its beautiful things
And making me feel
Amazing

What the ****, Beauty?

Hannah Baker was the girl
Gave her dress a little twirl
And when I called on her to play
Turns out Hannah passed away

Writing poems but who are they for?
Are they secret notes to myself
To read
When I'm old and gray?
Are they
(Perhaps)
Simply lyrics to
Songs I'll never sing?
Are they my
Crudest representation
Of
My soul?
Yes they are.
Maybe.
I'm not ceratin.
To be honest
I have
No clue.

Someday, someone might find my poetry
And they'll quote me
To me
And I will tell them they are wrong
But you said it here, they say
And they'll point down at the page of my writing
Sorry, I'll say, I couldn't have written it
I sold my hands to buy cigars
Then I'll light a match
And walk away

I will give you a virtual kiss
Virtual kiss
And a virtual hug
virtual hug
I just can't give you
A virtual me

I wrote a poem
Seconds before my head exploded
In a flashing of
Cacophonous pain
Inharmonious
Agony
Was it dehydration?
Hunger?
Stress?
All I knew was that it hurt.
And the ibuprofen was safely at home
Out of reach
I've always hated geography

Love me, love me
Forever and a day
She says
But how can I love you
When I can't love
Myself
?
She has no answer
Because I never ask
The question

I'm too afraid to
Admit that I may never
Be able to love anything
Or worse yet
That I never have
Loved

Stop trying to analyze and dig deep down inside
Sometimes what I'm saying isn't what I'm trying to hide
Sometimes I just say the things I feel
Or nonsensical junk about the unreal

Sure the "chocolate syrup" has a meaning
But that doesn't make everything mean something
My allusions are oft false
To delve deep into a shallow pool
Is to plan for failure
There will be pain for us both if you keep it up

I enjoy the smaller things that
No one ever does
Noticing the words and expressions
Just  because

The little, hidden dimples that
Show up when you smile
The way your shirt conceals your form
Yet reveals it all the while

I wrote you a letter, oh was I ever the fool
To think that you'd want me: the geek at the pool
Maybe if I wore a v-neck like those dudes you like
Or if I wore those pleather pants and had a motorbike
But instead I'm wearing swim trunks that are sporting Spiderman
The kid one, not the knock-off of the movie from Japan
My complexion's pasty white, like I was locked away for years
And my aversion to the ocean's only heightened by my fears
Of public humiliation, but it seems I've got that down
Because no matter what I do, I'm the laughingstock of town
So when your letter got here, it came as no surprise
To read. "*******, Jason T. Go and dry your **** four eyes."

Talk about yourself,
He said
Talk about your past
Talk of things that came to be
And things that wouldn't last

Oh, talk about myself,
I asked
Is that what you'd have me do?
Talk about the disappointments:
All the movies, books, and you?

Talk about yourself,
Again
He said, with a sigh and a cough
Pull out the stops, and pull out the plug
And beat the machine 'til it's off

I can't say that I know what it's like
To lose someone
And it's not because I have never experienced death

My Great Aunt died of lung cancer
Though she never smoked
And was the nicest lady
With what I assumed
Was a New York accent
To ever be convinced that I loved
Her Spinach Frittata
And who indirectly
Made jokes about my insatiable desire
To consume the apple pie

She died on the tenth of october in the year two-thousand ten
(10/10/10)
And I remember my father calling me to the kitchen
To tell me the news
I cried a little
And went back to my room to write angry poetry
But ultimately I was just tired
And went to sleep
Without really adressing anything

At her funeral, I remember my cousin telling me
The story of how her (then) long-term boyfriend
Used wire cutters to remove his braces
A week before they were due to come off
They called me over to put a shovelful of dirt
Into the grave
And I did
Then ran back, jumping as I did (jumping as I did),
To my cousin
Because her candid attitude let me know that it was ok
Not to be somber

My dad's friend had a stroke which dislodged blood clots and sent him
Into a coma for a long time
And while we posed with him for Christmas pictures
(I hated posing, I hated the picture-taking, I hated smiling, it all felt wrong)
And my father promised that hypnosis was going to work
My dad's friend died
In a hospital bed
In his home
In a historical region of uptown Whittier
My dad lost his friend
My mom lost hers as well
When she stopped talking to his wife
Who had been her friend first

The cousin who was talking to me at the funeral
Lost her (then) boyfriend
When she woke up one morning
To find him dead with her
In bed

So I can't say that I know what it's like
Because I have lost people
I've seen death
And I dislike it
I dislike the thought that all my
Teachers will die before me
And I am sad thinking about those days
That I will be in the crowd
One of the Touched

I dislike that I don't know what it's like
Because I don't see it like the others
I try to remember beauty in their life
Beauty that they shared with me
Beauty that I will keep alive
Like the energy cell
The Doctor blew life into
To power the TARDIS

But if I can't find it
If there was nothing we shared
If there is nothing to tie me to them
I feel bad that someone else feels bad
I dislike their pain and
I wish I could give them a hug
And that the hug would fix everything
But it won't
And all I can do is think about
How much I ****
At comforting grievers
And how much I wish
I could be a better comforter
But I'm not
Because I don't do well with death

On a night no different than
The others that abound
I spotted six unsavory men
Together, hanging around

I told meself, "Now looks at them
They seem a likely lot
What may have stole me puddin packs
Right out me secret ***."

I thoughts a bit then took a chance
I walked into their midst
I told about the puddin stole
And ask 'em if they didst

They laughed a bunch and thought me for jestin'
But 'twasn't I what told them jokes
And when they saw I was being earnest
They gave me slaps and pokes

I thought I saw a blinkin light
Above me twisted head
But twas only lights of painfulness
Like parts of me was dead

I never found me puddin packs
And it truly made me sad
Cos I was to make puddin cake
For me child what wasn't bad

Trouble in paradise, they all say
But there's no trouble in my little rowboat
I'll row my way
Through Banality Bay
Past the pain and humiliation
Of being duped and duplicated
And it'll all be fine
So long as I'm at the oars
And you're at the tiller

Woah.
Hold on a moment.
I just told her
"I love you a fuckton more than a fuckton. Plus a whale made of Jell-o."
I'm not even sure what that means
Does anyone?
Probably not
Maybe they're just words, but they seemed to make sense
When I said them

Barry Manilow said he wrote the songs that made the whole world sing
And all I do is sit
And type
And listen to him sing
While I cry

Billy Joel told me that he just wanted someone that he could talk to
And I only listened
Didn't say anything of importance
Or anything at all
For that matter

Adam Duritz sang that he was the rain king
And I remember
Everytime I sit near a window
Or stand out in the street
When it rains

Ingrid Michaelson told me that she just wanted to be ok
And I knew that she'd be ok
If she was singing
And being her creative self
With me

I wanted to sing my compositions and act and dance
But the songs and words
Of my favourite artists
Seem like an unreachable
Plateau

Come on over,
I've got food!
It's alright if you
eat it all
I don't mind if you
want to watch tv
Just show me some sign
of you
not hating me

I'd draw you a picture
If my sketches weren't ****
I'd write you a poem
If the rhymes would just stick
I'd give you a hug
But you say mine are awkward
So here're books and a card
From Urban Outfitters

******* tired of trying to be
                                        Atlas
I need to be me for a change
dlrow ym fo thgiew eht
rednu gnilbmurc m'I

So I'm done
I quit
I will show emotion
**** that facade
**** always smiling

Because right now
I'm pouring the chocolate syrup
All over the floor
And I've gotta say
This
Feels
Great

LIESLIESLIES
I am the essence of
LIESLIESLIES
I make my memory through
LIESLIESLIES
I leave a legacy of
LIESLIESLIES
I give you nothing but
LIESLIESLIES**
A hypocrite and liar,
Once displayed
Is nothing more

You can trust the people
But not the devil inside them
And I know now
That he's there
In me

I say what I shouldn't
Forget what I shouldn't
Remember nothing
Of any sort
Of value

The devil inside me
Takes root
And I've shot all my resources
In the hand
That fed me