Let's build a man, whole cloth
but let's build him wrong.
Let's make him distant and cold
give him lyrics but no song.
Let's curse him with gifts
take his hands and give them art
but leave out his ambition
so he'll never know how to start.
We'll wire his brain backwards
so he'll have the capcity to deduce
but let's not include every *****
so his sanity is always loose.
And what if we give him
outrageous faith in the wrong places.
Have him be confident in failure
when he looks at disappointed faces.
And just for a lark, what if we
made him concious of these facts.
Gave him awareness of deficiencies
so he'll understand all that he lacks.

I just want to say something real,
that lasts beyond my time.
I wanna know I mattered
before the number called is mine.
It may not matter that I tried
it might be futile to do my best,
and I'm not asking for accolade.
No need for Glottaman's rest.
And listen: I know it doesn't
matter, that it's all random chance.
I know that music only plays
until the end of the dance.
But if you could know
what comes after your fall
would any of that change
anything you do, even at all?
All stories end, all books conclude
and we don't always know when
and if we're lucky the mark stays
in the middle for as long as it can.
One day its over and every tomorrow
becomes one dreamless, endless night
there are more pages behind the mark
and the ending is already in sight.

I want to write about the ocean
but only ever manage
verse after verse about fire.
I want to sing about hope
but always belt out choruses
filled with unfufilled desire.
I want to listen to the falling rain
but get so ******* distracted
by all the miserable daily pain,
And I don't know what'll fix it
I'm only ever a moment of falling
away from going totally insane.
I want you to know, I believe
even if it would appear I
only really know how to grieve,
I want you to miss me
and ask me seriously
when I go not to leave.
Because, I don't want to fight
it's like I can see just fine
but haven't got any sight.
Give me a spark, love, light up the night
and I'll drown it in an honest
desire to get just one ******* thing right.
.

The boat gently rocks
in time with the gentle
lapping against the hull
of the waves in the
ocean of abandoned
things in which I find
myself adrift.
I've no oar or rudder
and the sun beats down
on my uncovered head
and I'm so thirsty I cannot
drink and so hungry that
the idea of food makes me
dry heave and the steady
purposeful movement of
the raft slows my mind
and makes my bones weary
and I wonder, often and
for exceedingly long stretches
of time, if you've noticed
that I've gone.
Does it matter at all that
my lips are cracked but no
longer contain blood to bleed
or even that my monotone reaponses
have stop sounding from
the room adjacent to the one
you shout questions you've
long ago had the answers to?
Does it matter at all that
the ocean is vast and I'm
without sextant or stars
by which to find you or that
the chorus of pleasant sounding
compliments you've requested
my presence be has become
silence and void in place of me?
I'm waiting for rescue on this
sea that I've found myself in
and couching decades of pain
about your wishing I'd never
been born to my childhood face
in thin metaphor because
to tell the truth would destroy you
and only one of us has ever
had to suffer these waters
and why not just let it be me?
Navigating your sea has taught me
that suffering proves you care
and if I suffer enough you may
glance at my absence and
notice that I am not there.

We give the world nine months
to prepare for our arrival
and almost always no warning
to prepare for our departure
and we wreck up the place
in the time between.
Some party we got invited to,
we'll lament, but the music
sure was a comfort to dance to.
It's only ever a heartbeat
from just being over
any and all random second
and we're still arguing
about what love means.
If we could line up all of
our days, end to end, and count
all the seconds we'll ever get
it would then be a great deal
of time we wasted worrying
but the line would be longer
still just to have the chance.
And maybe there is no solution
to the problem of this deep
anxiety about the finish line
and maybe the world stays
broken in the wake of our
wasted lives and we just have
to learn to live and die with it.
And maybe the questions are
a waste of time but what else
do we have to do but to ask them?
Because that beating sound
your heart makes, the normal
drum inside you thudding
away your sinus rhythm
isn't just a comfort, it's a warning,
it is a ******* countdown
that could finish on any
random beat or counted second
and the place will be wrecked up
and the party will long be over,
the dancing died with the last
strangled cords of the music
and yet, one single heartbeat
from done and we don't still
don't know what love is.

I know that you'll never
accidentally be happy,
not the real kind, not in
the way that will last.
I know that confronting
and moving on with purpose
toward a whole future is
how to deal with the past.
I know that forgiveness is
possible and healthy but
I don't know that spell
well enough to cast.

I'm doing my best,
I swear that I am.
I'm pushed down on
but, with knees bent,
I'm still able to stand.

It's a matter of time now
before the clocks chime
to midnight and I'm
still cold and unresolved.
I'm a locked room mystery
with all the clues present
and lined up and just
waiting to be solved.
It's getting hard to talk about
and harder still to fix and I don't
want help, exactly, but it's clear
someone needs to get involved.

I think we all wish for tomorrow
to be perfect and beautiful and bright
but it'll just be like today
all over again unless we set
our point of view just right.

There were still stories to tell
before the bottom dropped out
and the whole ******* world fell.
There was a song playing soft
in a further room that was meant
to thunder but only got a cough.
There was time to finish and to start
there were daydream visions
and wonderful, weird outsider art.

That's done now. Blown apart.

What if all the stories have ended
and we're living the the final words?
What if the sky becomes dark and
empty and is absent of birds?
What if the songs have all wound down
and we're resolving notes and not the verse?
What if everything boils like oceans at
end times and all words become curse?

Tomorrow is coming because things can always get worse.