I put conkers on my door-frame, to keep spiders at bay,
I like my bedroom messy so I don't put things away.
I wish I had a pony, but I know I wouldn't drive it,
I wish I had a bumblebee, but I've no hive to hive it.

I'm a vegetarian but I've no views on rights of chickens,
I love to read the classics but I've no views on ****** Dickens,
I own a hundred thousand scarves but never would I wear one,
I'd envy those who have tattoos, but I would never bare one.

I light candles everyday but they make me cough,
I respect those that speak in Art and understood Van Gogh,
I drink coffee everyday, but never liked it very much,
I've never had a rabbit but I own a cage and hutch.

We all do little, crazy things that no one understands,
we lose control and lose ourselves and always change our plans.
The ones they think are crazy are the ones who cause the change,
whether you love or hate them, you always know their names.

So if you're building up an army , piece by piece by piece,
please remember normal friends, you need one oddball at least!

I

I have a good imagination
Nay I say I have a great one
Hell, I'd be willing to say it is splendiforous
Not a word?
I don't really give a **** because
With great imagination comes brand new words

A brand new vocabulary is merely one pro
Just a single benefit that
A great imagination can bestow
There are more but the first has got to be the words
With these brand new syllables and letters yet to be invented
One can weave a new language
A secret code in which to communicate
With the six foot, broadsword wielding fire-breathing ape
That you can call your imaginary friend

But with a great imagination, he is not imaginary
He is indeed real
He sits beside you in the dark
As the nightmare still clings to your brow
And he speaks
Just when you can no longer stand the silence
He will dance in front of your little eyes
Just so the dark no longer seems evil

And when you stand alone in a crowded yard
Because your name is linked to a fictitious disease
Thought up by lesser imaginations
You can still have a friend that tells you you matter
Yet with this scenario comes our first con
People with no understanding of a great imagination
People who do not love it as they should
They tell you that because your friend is not technically real
That you must surrender him
You must lose him and take new friends
Friends that must be better because they are flesh and blood
Even though, they rejected you for nothing more
Than the jealousy that lesser imaginations feel

And so you do
Because you are imaginative, not stupid
You know that to argue would mean yet another label
This time the disease you earn is all too real
You don't fight losing your coping mechanism
You will survive
I will
Because I have a great imagination

II

I have a great imagination
One might even call it amazing
I would call it unstoppable
Because even when it takes heavy blow
It still goes on

It takes the loss of that imaginary friend
And it redirects
Barreling forward like a wayward locomotive
It promises you that you will still be ok
And you believe your imagination because the lies it tells
Are the kind you are willing to believe in the name of sanity

You get older
Keep the most fanciful of your imagination hidden
Because you've grown tired of the couch
That piece of hardened leather
Worn fabric situated under fluorescent lights
Lights, your imagination says, are there to push it away
The way the suited people speak
You know its right

But you need to let this imagination loose
You must have the release that it craves for you
This is the second pro
It can give you direction
You focus it
Control it
Weave it into magnificent fictions where the oddball can win
Or destroy the world, whichever your imagination prefers
You feel you have your true calling
This is the sign you need that you are destined
For more than ridicule
In the world of pages and ink, your imagination is free

The big con is
It is free and unbothered
As long as you keep it out of sight
The wolves who have been waiting to tear you assunder
Those false docs waiting to proclaim you mad
The enemies of imagination
They will look at the spoils of your toiling and tear into it
Every piece of fiction conceived that does not sit right is wrong
They say it is the result of the imagination's slow sister, The Subconscious

That very real disease that once threatened you returns
Its teeth barred
You stare into its thrashing jaws
The fear you feel is unlike anything you have before
But you tell yourself you will survive
You must
I must
Because I have a great imagination

III

I have a great imagination
It is wonderful
And it is maddening
Not mad at the angry screaming
But more of the psychotic laughing used to cover up the crying

The final con this imagination has is fear
As you move on from the lesser imaginations
And ignore those searching for hidden meanings in your scribbles
You start to rely more on your imagination
It hasn't led you astray and its lies are always beneficial
So you listen to it

Yet it stews in your skull
You don't engage it and it grows bored
So it comes up with new ways to terrify you
Just so it can amuse itself
It gives you pictures of the end and the blackness beyond
You see the faces of your mourners
You try to imagine life without you
And life in lifelessness

You hear about a superbug that masquerades
The deadly wolf in the ill sheep's clothes
The images of your imagination kick in and every cough
Every sniffle
Every slight wrong feeling in your gut and you crave Hazmat gear

You realize that you are not the protagonist of your own story
You are not the hero
You are not the plucky princess or the charming rogue
You are able to die at a moment's notice and are unsure of what awaits you
Heaven, Valhalla, blackness or lingering
You don't know and you aren't ready to find out

But in this con comes the final pro
Hope
When you are down , your imagination comes in to console you
Just like the ape from your childhood
It switches the visions
It stows the ones that terrify you for the moment
You now can picture yourself as a success

Your imagination paying off
Your dreams coming true
You picture that moment when you naysay the naysayers
They will come and beg forgiveness
Apologize
Everything looks bright

I can feel the wind in my face
And I have the courage to finally jump
I spread my arms like wings
And I soar
Closing my eyes to the wind
I don't care if I'm falling

Because I know
In the deepest pit of my heart
That I am actually flying
Because I have a great imagination

Lonely warring me
With rose-tinted testicles
Ever the oddball

© Robert Porteus

Scars are my artistry.
Pain is my gain.
Tattoos are the ink in which I sign my name.
And the piercings are my way of shining bright for all to see.

I say "I'm just tired"
Because I can't tell you
I can't tell you how I just want to cry
All the time
Because sometimes I feel so hopeless
Because sometimes I feel so different
Because I'm strange and left out and rejected
I can't tell you how my heart is broken
That the most beautiful boy I've ever known doesn't want me
Because I can't tell you what I did
Because I don't want you to see the ugly inside of me
I can't tell you how I hate my body
That I nit-pick and try to perfect it every second of every day
Because I feel trapped in this physical shell
Because I just want to be beautiful
I can't tell you how ashamed and alone I feel
Because I'm different
Because I'm an oddball and I don't fit in with any of my many groups
Because I'm never good enough, never bad enough
Because I'm never enough
I can't tell you any of this
Because I don't think you really want to hear it
Because I don't want to burden you
Because I know I'm being stupid
Because I feel too insecure to tell anyone anything
Because I don't trust people anymore
Because you'll just hurt me
I can't tell you any of this
So instead I'll say,
"Nothing's wrong. I'm just tired."

Think for a minute
Close your eyes
Do this, escape the atmosphere of lies

When your still in the cloud of youth
There's no reason to accept the rotten truth

You could be abandoned in fear
In a filthy world unclear

If you still wonder why you were born
And your hearts just beaten and torn
Is the suffering worth it
When you drowning in ****?

Believe me kid
I've been through it all
That's why I started oddball
Everything I say is nothing but true
A straight up message from me to you

When your drowning in quicksand
I'll always be there to give you a hand
Come on kid, be a little glad
I'm offering you what I never had

The only friends I had were just sittin' on the side lines
They knew I was locked in the cage
What did I see? They were holding the key
To them I was spent up like cash
Threw our friendship in the trash

Not once did I cry
The only question is "Why?"
And still as I'm up here rappin'
I don't know what the **** happened

You have to never lose hope
Sooner or later life is gonna get dope

I can assure things will only get better
In this situation, we don't ever say never

If anyone treats you any lower than what you are
Just walk away
You don't need another scar

There's **** in the past you shouldn't dwell
It'll only put you back in that cell
What's done is done
Still, you have to make room for the fun

If your only inheritance
Is the abuse from your parents
You'll be outa that **** hole soon enough
Then you can live the real life, many things await you,
a whole lotta stuff

Still frustrated with the lovers?
Don't lose hope, there's plenty others
Dude, you'll find the perfect chick
But not with that attitude
Girls, there's your guy somewhere in this world

Spread your wings out far
Just be who you are

When you start to shake
Think what your doing
It's your path to take

Dear My sweetie Maria,
Growing up,
isn't such a lovely cup of tea,
and girls with the grace of honey bee's,
don't always get what we hoped for,

and some may have shut the door on your corps,
but you clearly wanted more then to smell the affair in the air,
like how children always cared with every strand of hair in there body,
we say our prayers even if our minds were foggy,

Stormy weather is when I see you walking in the rain,
as if the pain will drain and you're looking to gain something too,
and if we could break threw you and your secrets,
we can help you get through all your weakness and pain.

but you've chained your life story and locked the key in your book,
and if there was a way to look I would,
I know your not understood but listen when I say,
"I'd give my happiness away any day for you to feel happy and okay,"

But Maria says "she's dying,"
though her door all I here is her crying,
and i'm fighting for this door to open up,
and Maria came out to show she didn't completely give up on herself,

but Maria isn't protecting her I'm not either,
Maria neither cares to survive or die,
Maria won't say why, or let alone goodbye,
and Maria's alive because of the pulse,

like the machine your impulse to not pull the plug,
even though they feel as worthless as bugs we **** for nothing,
because the thing about bugs,
we find them to be worthless and bugging so we pull their plugs,

Maria I don't want to pull your plug,
but Maria, you're like the bugs,
the bugs who are your friends,
but you all attend; a part in a oddball circus tightrope act.

some walked on and got claps while others fell as they failed again,
but Maria remained on the wire,
until Maria went up to higher stories in the air,
climbed a story for every story Maria never cared to tell,

Maria screamed and yelled "Are you looking up at the building?"
"I'm thinking of jumping, I'm tired of living this life,"
"I'm tired of this ******* knife, it doesn't help me,"
"I'm just tired of wanting Something,"

"I was just a girl outside, and he disgusted me,"
"he tried to drown me in this sea of lies he told and did,"
"I was a kid, I had hid this for so long thinking I did wrong,"
"I just never belonged, I'm ruined don't you see, I am worth nothing,"

"I just see nothing here, just Nothing"
"so I'm falling down here, so try and catch me, but i'm falling,"
"I Just can't see nothing,"
"here.."

Through a split lip
red foam,
froghopper froth
fizzing, haemoglobin, half-life
sitting thickly-thick,
on a paving stone.
Looking like Clinton’s cards
think human hearts
are shaped like.

But mine’s an artichoke
a watery phloem thistle core
folded in fronds and furs,
bristles of cowlick baleen,
sailing, ship-lapped bark,
darkness and birdcages.

Mine’s a rigour-mortis pill bug
potato fly, oddball, ***** slug
an ammonite, a butterfly tongue,
a bending toe curled in ecstasy.
Exponential shell chambers and septums
ending alongside everything.

And the guts of my heart
incessantly churn mechanically,
maniacally and obliviously rhythmically
Keeping me malleable
soft,
moving,
un-enveloped by beetle wings.

Just like the platelets
of my hardening spit-heart
are, blackening blood,
amber caught bugs,
clay in mud,
elliptical,
eclipsing.
Nothing

like we think it is.

<)))<   <)))<  <)))< <)))<

<)))<  >(((>  <)))<  <)))<

<)))<  <)))<  <)))<  <)))<

being
different
means
going
against
the school
being
free to
think
alone
though
you're
thought an
oddball fool
at least
your mind
isn't set
in stone!

for who is
foolish but
the ones
who follow
blindly
with the tide
for their end
has e'r begun
to withdraw
to run & hide

in the crowd
they are not seen
in the shelter
of conformist streams
but who of import
has ever been
who did not
stand out like a beam?

be a lighthouse!
not a candle
almost put out
and guttering
there is nothing
you can't handle

God will give you

*roots & wings!