This is the only time I get to myself
so of course I'm gonna write about myself
I guess this pen and paper is a form of self help

And I'll admit -
I feel less haunted

I've got a lot of **** to get off my chest
Like how I've always felt like I'm second best
To a world full of ******* idiots
who did a better job
of makin' life make sense

You see, I've got all these thoughts up in my head
and I don't think they'll ever stop until I'm dead
They tend to come on stronger while I'm in my bed
Hopin' to find some rest
In my knife-proof vest

Cause I've been stabbed in the back a few times
And my paths crossed a few thin white lines
(But I guess that's how it should be)

Cause I've had nights where I broke down and cried
After long hard days where I believed the lies
(Because she told me that she loved me)

And I used to love God
Then I used to hate God
Then I told God to his face
That he didn't exist
Then I found God
And oh, good God
I found that even with faith
life ain't perfect

So beneath our tongues we're slippin' secrets
And in our lungs we're holdin' deep hits
As we get lost in fleeting moments
we notice
we chose this

We are not for them

We've found bliss

“I can believe things that are true
and things that aren't true
and I can believe things
where nobody knows
if they're true or not. 

I can believe in Santa Claus
and the Easter Bunny
and the Beatles
and Marilyn Monroe
and Elvis
and Mister Ed.
Listen -
I believe that people are perfectable,
that knowledge is infinite,
that the world is run
by secret banking cartels
and is visited by aliens
on a regular basis,
nice ones
that look like wrinkled lemurs
and bad ones who mutilate cattle
and want our water and our women. 

I believe that the future *****
and I believe that the future rocks
and I believe that one day
White Buffalo Woman is going to come back
and kick everyone's ***.
I believe that all men
are just overgrown boys
with deep problems communicating
and that the decline
in good *** in America
is coincident
with the decline in drive-in movie theaters
from state to state. 

I believe that all politicians
are unprincipled crooks
and I still believe that they are better
than the alternative.
I believe that California
is going to sink into the sea
when the big one comes,
while Florida
is going to dissolve into madness
and alligators
and toxic waste. 

I believe that antibacterial soap
is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease
so that one day
we'll all be wiped out by the common cold
like martians in War of the Worlds. 

I believe that the greatest poets of the last century
were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis,
that jade is dried dragon *****,
and that thousands of years ago
in a former life
I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. 

I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars.
I believe that candy
really did taste better when I was a kid,
that it's aerodynamically impossible
for a bumble bee to fly,
that light is a wave and a particle,
that there's a cat in a box somewhere
who's alive and dead
at the same time
(although
if they don't ever open the box
to feed it
it'll eventually just be
two different kinds of dead),
and that there are stars in the universe
billions of years older
than the universe itself. 

I believe in a personal god
who cares about me
and worries
and oversees everything I do.
I believe in an impersonal god
who set the universe in motion
and went off to hang with her girlfriends
and doesn't even know
that I'm alive.
I believe in an empty and godless universe
of causal chaos,
background noise,
and sheer blind luck. 

I believe that anyone
who says *** is overrated
just hasn't done it properly.
I believe that anyone
who claims to know what's going on
will lie about the little things too. 

I believe in absolute honesty
and sensible social lies.
I believe in a woman's right to choose,
a baby's right to live,
that while all human life is sacred
there's nothing wrong with the death penalty
if you can trust the legal system
implicitly,
and that no one but a *****
would ever trust the legal system. 

I believe that life is a game,
that life is a cruel joke,
and that life is what happens
when you're alive
and that you might as well
lie back and enjoy it.”

She stopped,
out of breath.

My dad was not without love,
but a cliched Irish *******
when he wanted to be.
Drinker, brawler,
all that stuff.
Never shed a tear,
saw weakness everywhere.
But he had this thing for poems,
poetry;
reading them, quoting them.
Probably thought it rounded him off,
ya know?
His way of apologizing,
I guess.
And there was one
that hung over the desk in his den.
It was only when I was a lot older,
I realized he had written it.
It was untitled,
four lines.
I read it at his funeral.
'Once more into the fray
Into the last good fight I'll ever know
Live and die on this day
Live and die on this day'

That day the grass boiled,
the sky churned
and the trees melted.
That day I felt better
than you will ever comprehend,
I felt a joy that can only be described
as purely indescribable;
I was the king of my own universe,
tucked neatly away
behind a small suburban neighborhood
where the flowers sold secrets
and the hills truly had eyes.
I was the god of a bridge that evening,
it only stood because I willed it to.
My consciousness was not as sturdy,
gaining omnipotence
took the wind right out of my step.

I woke up
swearing I'd never eat
another mushroom.

There was a time
where I didn't know anyone
with a child.
Where I hadn't been
a groomsmen
in three weddings.
Where I didn't feel as though
I were losing some imaginary race.

There was a time
when T.J. was still alive,
when Lisa was still alive,
when Peg was still alive.
But every flower wilts with time.
Some by choice,
some after a hard fought fight
and some after a long lived life.

There will be a time
when this all makes sense.
When I will see why my road
took the course it did.
When I will be humble
with my fate.

But time is relative
and it is man made.
Life is but a fleeting single flash.
It is just one big bang.

Pure energy,
harnessed
but not controlled,
being used in the most primitive,
****** way;
The essence of both
fire
and dance,
Making love
in one beautiful
moment

Sometimes, what's left behind
is better than what was there in the first place