(9-24-11 instrumental)

it takes 2 years to forget 6 years,
it takes 12 beers to forget your tears,
and it's those tears that flow so near,
this backyard that you hold so dear,
i held you here in better years,
i'd cheer you up, when i'd hear your fears,
the taste of beer and sky so clear
steer away now, it's in the rear,
view and that feels so cold,
i only see you through untagged photos,
youtubing high school talent shows,
or recitals, it's vital, that no one
actually knows, that i'm caught up
bought to get lost up,
another drink, another think,
i'm just a flawed ****,
but i play it cool and act strong,
those other fools won't last long.


another sad song, i make it better,
got a new chick that's wetter cause
she aint afraid of that weather,
umbrellas discarded, in the bleachers,
teachers, gawking from the sidelines,
it's all fine, it's our time,
no need to dodge landmines...
call me minesweeper,
call me mindreader,
call me timekeeper,
call me justin bieber,
call me baby, baby baby,
call me jay-z, call me kanye,
call me all day, call me homewrecker,
call me and say i can do better,
call me about your sweater,
that's still at my place,
call me ghostface, call me action bronson,
call me hot one, call me ******* loser,
call me a waste of your time,
call me and say that this rhyme's, too simple,
call me jimmy kimmel, sarah silver-man.
i'm a better man, i'm business-man, i'm a gentle-man
i'm stan, writing this down in a crazy letter
no ink, self-mutilation and a feather,
better yet, i'm saying this outloud in the booth,
kick this rap game in the tooth with these red wing boots.

Maybe it started going down Peasley Canyon Road. I can't recall.
****.
Maybe it started with not giving, or not wanting to.
No matter really, that act was over, the lines were out and the curtain drawn.
It's funny what the mind drags up
on it's own.
Mine drags up things like lost telescopes, looked thru
and cracked plastic leather , that hadn't
yet.
I knew how that man on TV felt who had only months to live, as I had only weeks.
Only two.
So...I gave you my blue apres-ski sweater, too big, a ring I still wear, too big to0 and my love, that I suppose wasn't.
On the plane away it was like a mixer gone crazy inside me...part staying, part going.
Of the part that went along I lost or had it removed with drill parades and dope lectures, fighting fires you can't loose and paper targets.
Very surgically.
Letters to you had phrases like 'smashed psyche' (which I still can't spell) and 'never let go'.
Bunk beds can be fun until they're made of steel and draped with woolen blankets and someone's legs from Alabama.
One of my friends at camp turned me on and I became the barracks Dylan, I'm not sure whether Thomas or Bob.
After a hundred years and eleven weeks it ended
and started.
A nice lady at the airport gave us all the only ****** shot we'd e had in eighteen hundred hours.
I'd called, prior to leaving and you were there at the end of that in-and-out mouth that blows the people out and ***** them back in after the fuel
I'd grown tired of walking up that ramp in my dreams but that time, I left no tracks at all.
A blue dress with ruffles round the neck and those patterned nylons then the rage. I read a few days ago that holding hands feels good even in this day and age.
Send that lady a rose.
Two weeks can last 20 minutes, I know.
Then started the back and forth of school a thousand miles away and painful phone call and Conni ,signed with a circle above the i.We split and mended a couple of times and I read the Harrad Experiment and I got a purple note from Conni and I called to say... I'm not sure what.
Hello...goodbye.
Time went by and so did school.
I remember walking across this field in San Francisco and being depressed by how long it took for fifteen minutes to pass when one considered four years.
I flew home to you that weekend and was duly dropped from school the next.
I asked for some dreamed of tug boat in Puget Sound but got instead a minesweeper in Japan. We'de done the front seat and hurried basement tango and I called Conni to say
well, I'm not sure what.
Hello
Goodbye
Stairs and glass and a clutching you and a sick me.

October 10th, Nineteen Sixty Eight
A hand, a car, a reading, a letter, a truck, a plane, a train and another reading.
I think there were only five or six lines to it but it was enough.
No yo-yos, no pick me up and put me down again...ok?
OK, I love you.
A friend named Green, a hundred talks sometimes with wine, sometimes not. Letters and business calls to you, cycles with no keys and McGaha, Clarence BM1, unit of issue one each, houses and no overnights, Lt. Cris Curtis and no-trouble dissension, the Maharishi and July and you and me and you and me
The Astronauts made it and we did too,  by the gate to the new lake
"A small step for man, a giant leap for mankind."
He was almost right.

June 21st Nineteen Seventy
The shrink never seen and you in Southern California at four in the morning and the Kona Hotel.
Burning ears and imagined heavies sent to intercept us at the infamous glass door.Not the first time but the best time.
Flying home together you gave me the window seat and your hand, all I needed.

November 15th  Nineteen Seventy
Sea-tac Motor Inn, coffee and toast and love.
I'm glad you didn't come down cause Ed was there and he was bad enough at saying goodbye.
Calls to you from Hawaii and Kwajaline and Guam and islands no one ever heard of but fish and me.

T minus 180-179-179-177
ad infinitum
Goodbye Subic Bay, goodbye
Tricks to keep away reality like tapes from home and **** in the old man's coffee cup. Jokes told and re-told till we all re-laughed.
Who ever heard of Sea Detail at 3:30 in the morning?
Me, thank God.
Friend Green was gone from Hawaii too, so I left on the first plane. SoCal again as the news media calls it, two days of debriefing then
out
I can't remember if I took a bus or a cab to the airport nor can I really recall which gate or even if you were there.
I guess I start at the tunnel yelling "OUT, I"M OUT!
I don't know if it started going up Peasley Canyon road or down.

sometimes it creeps into the bones in my knees and it gives me artist's arthritis
i massage myself with the dull point of a pencil,
listening to the soothing sound of my thoughts coming to life

and sometimes an idea will crawl into my ear and lay its eggs there
if my passion is warm enough, they are incubated on the inside of my skull and crack open without warning

and to clear my head of the leftover eggshells, i have to play minesweeper for days on end

wond'ring when my days will end
and if my poetry will still be breathing

I try to ask you how your day is going
but the bravery slips from my lips
and I am worried those are not the right words-
all I can muster up the courage to say is whats up?
I tip-toe around your emotions like this is minesweeper
waiting for any move I make to make you explode-
but it seems the only thing I'm sweeping is my mind
in an attempt to rack yours.
Am I yours anymore?
Because these days all seem to blend together
and I try to avoid the explosions
but they seem to come anyways
always hiding behind passive aggressions
and misread text messages
because you don't like texting
so I tend to keep quiet.
Try to stay silent as long as I possibly can
but with every good thing that happens I want to turn to you
and every bad thing, I want to run to you.
Is that a crime?
Am I a nuisance for sprinting to you with my issues
and am I naive for thinking
that you would welcome them with open arms.
I feel like this is high school again-
because I think that was the last time
I was actually scared to talk to someone..
See my heart beats out of my chest for you
but it seems everyday I am struggling
more and more to keep it beating less
because I am an anxiety ridden mess already
and not telling you about it makes it worse-
trying to make you understand makes it worse-
you not believing I can't control it makes it so much worse
and these things I wish I didn't go through
I ******* do
so why should I have to keep them from you?
BOOM.
Another bomb dropped at my feet
and all I can make out is the ringing in my ears
I'm so ******* tired of not being me..
I just warily wait in the corner for another explosion these days
and you keep telling me to talk to you
but the words come out muffled and I am flustered.
I'm not sure how to explain to you
if I can't over-explain it or make it a big deal
because these things, to me, are a big deal
I'M A ******* BIG DEAL!
I am the bomb ready to explode,
I am the snake in the grass nipping at your ankles-
I am the ******* 4am phone call crying for help.
And I am worth every single ******* star
in the entire universe because I shine just as bright
and provide you with a way out of your own darkness-
so ******* treat me as such.

What am i supposed to do
When everything is too much
When the idea of getting out of bed
Sounds like the hardest thing of my life
I stand in front of the mirror
I need to wash my face
I need to brush my teeth
So why can't I?
Why does that feel impossible

What am i supposed to do
When my entire life is a game of minesweeper
Always one move away from game over
From an explosion
And when I say explosion I mean of emotion

Anger that shakes me to my core
Anger that makes it impossible to do anything
Anger that makes me yell at you
Even if you don't deserve it.

Or maybe it'll be sadness
Soul crushing heartbreaking sadness
Tears that won't stop until you are choking
Literally choking for air.

What am i supposed to do
When I can't seem to enjoy anything
When everything is lack luster
When everything is pointless.

What am i supposed to do?
What can I do?
nothing.

With smoke against the night sky,
Somehow I am the bad guy.
I walk around so uptight,
But still, I have these "laugh lines,"
On my face.
I don't know a place
Where I don't have to tip toe like
There's land mines.
I remember playing Minesweeper
And sneezing all the **** time.
  All on my computer screen.
Allergic to the rules of things.
Allergic to reality.
I feel my family doubting me.
If sanguis est crassius quam aqua,
Then why do strangers lounge
With me,
And seem like they're so proud of me?
Well, actually in actuality,
That's just as false.
Guess I'm bound to see
The truth that's been
Surrounding me.