Your advice
Is my vice
And you continue to add vices
And you swim like mad pisces
Through my stream of thoughts
With all the lessons you taught
From all the advice you brought
So I avoid your glance
To not give you the chance
To see the results of our fishdance
Or how much my life has been enhanced
Until I begin to flounder
As those pisces become piranha
Feeding on other considerations
And growing colossal
Until your kraken is in my mind
Cracking up my mind
Stacking up the time
It takes to get out of bed
As I trust the tentacles that tie me down
To a life floating on the surface
Of an ocean
Where the fish burn like a furnace
And I watch the water evaporate
Like the advice on which you elaborate
As the advice that was once there
Is currently water vapor in the air
As I start to think of us as a pair
From inside my secret underwater lair
That is the cavern of my mind
Where a school of fish
Teach me how to live and die

My philosophy as I drive down the road
I don't feel bad if I don't feel it under my tires
That means I step on spiders
Swat mosquitoes
Take antibiotics
Life is not created equal
When we live atop an ever shifting puzzle
Where the value of life
Is dependent on the ability to take life
A virus's sole purpose is to attack host cells and reproduce
So is our's
I guess we'll see who kills who first

Trees get larger trunks
Animals get larger teeth
Humans get larger guns
And as those guns hold our hopes
Humanity holds the hopes for all organisms
To one day transcend competition
But in the meantime
I'm worried about the cracks in the road
Because I can feel them shifting under my tires
But there is cement on my wheels
And on the vehicles around me
We pave this road we travel on
Until the cement runs dry
And our vessel dies
For newer improved cars to continue
On the freeway to transcendence

Every night I die in an airplane
Beads of sweat fall like rain
Every night I die in a plane crash
I wake up feeling like plain trash
Because every night my plane dives into the ocean
I can't believe the virtual reality of the motion
All my friends and family are there
I watch them drown
Leaving me marooned at sea
The river Styx of my dreams
I wake up marooned at bed
Swimming in a sea of sweat
None of my friends and family are there
And my adrenaline nightmares keep me scared
Because if I fall asleep
It's a nosedive I reap

Every night I die in an airplane
Why is this image so ingrained?
Every night I die in a plane crash
Pressure crushes me to plain ash
Because every night my plane flies into a mountain
The passenger's blood fills my eyes like fountains
All my friends and family are there
I watch them burn
Leaving me stranded in the hills of hell
Until I understand the pills too well
I wake up stranded in bed
Buried in an avalanche of sweat
None of my friends and family are there
And my reality has begun to tear
When I keep dying in my dreams
My mentality rips at the seams

Every night I die in an airplane
Why must my mind be so untame?
Every night I die in a plane crash
And my life becomes a plain flash
Because every night my plane flips upside down
As my useless body is tossed round and round
All my friends and family are there
I watch them get mangled
Leaving me to die at high speeds
With corpses that profusely bleed
I wake up dying in bed
Flipped face down in a pool of sweat
None of my friends and family are there
I begin to wonder if they even care
Because I watch them die every night
It makes me love them more
Because I watch them die every night
My life becomes a chore
But there's nothing for death to reclaim
When I'd just cross over to another plane

The clinical nature of your tests leaves me
A cynical crater of a mess
My interest begins to wane
When your quiz sparks pain
Like little droplets of rain
Falling on the window pane
Of your picture
That once was scripture
But now seems impure
And superficial
Destroying my hope
Like a missile

You probe like a lawyer
And act like Tom Sawyer
And expect my interest
But I have none to feign
When your image is stained
By the grueling test I went through
That revealed your inner truth

After all that time hope chasin'
I stumbled on a man named Mason
A man at heart but not in years
Love in my mind and in my tears
When we can't be together
For what seems like forever

Temptation when he tells me it's legal
But everybody would think I was evil
And laws become smudged
When everyone's a judge
Through the mud I trudge
On this path to nowhere and ask why
I can see happiness form in their eyes
When my walls begin to crumble
Because my Mason has disappeared

I live in the world
That makes me ashamed to feel love
And love to feel ashamed
There are asteroids floating in space
As I float dangerously in place
Before one hits my planet
I'd like to find someone that understands me completely
But the dust particles float around my cell
Sticking to my skin
Like tiny meteors constantly impacting me
I sink into the craters created
When my heart was cremated
The others were elated
When my love was traded
For a world with people I could talk with
I walk in a world with no one to walk with

My transcendent transition
Brought by my ****** ambition
Became my personal religion
When I gained a monk's chastity
All my pleas just came back to me
My prayers remain unanswered
Like someone dying of cancer
An inept bow-legged dancer
My skills are useless
My bites are toothless
My eyes are youthless
When my face has been strained
By the energy that was drained
On this ceaseless journey
To sate my ceaseless yearning

They don't look like the pictures they show
They only choose the photos that glow
They're so afraid of being alone
Willing to lie
To lure unsuspecting prey
And trap them in a spider web personality
But webs are useless against grander creatures
And become an annoyance
When all the wildlife
Can only see silk
And get itchy in the effected areas
In our minds we build barriers
In our hearts we grow wearier
Searching for someone to hold us tight at night
Someone that looks right in the light
Someone that helps fight all our plights
Someone to give that tranquil transition
Into that peaceful loving condition

Your friendship feeds the fire
Because you're my entire
You're my whole completion
But I have a worry secretion
You'll use a companion deletion

When we're having fun
You and I are one
I feel extremely close to you
For you teach me the value of two
But you begin to lose me
At the introduction of three
Jealousy piles on more
Once you reach four
And so on and so on
Until I'm all gone

The fire we've built together is too great
I fear the day
You are burnt by the friendly fire
The pain brings you to your senses
And you notice the extent of my wildfire
Having no semblance of control
It must be extinguished
Because by this point
It's all I can see
Part of my family tree
A fire that burns so bright
It protects me from night
But the fire was so red
It travelled to my head
You see how that went
With me pitching a tent
To hide in solitude
From the steam that rises
When fires must be put out

This routine moon
Spells my doom
When it's a dragon's tail
Of a day that's failed
Like the rays that bailed
My time turned stale
When the moon kept appearing
Like the echoes I'm hearing
When I wake in the morning
To see the same plot forming
I try to escape back to sleep
For the repetition makes me weep
And curse the indifferent heavens
While waiting on my lucky sevens
To get me out of a life so mundane
I feel the constant need to switch lanes
But the routine moon haunts from above
When the routine life is missing all love

The evolution of art never halts
Once we began dancing around fire
Our feet couldn't stop
A place in our lives
Where our subpar seeds
Could be seen as glowing trees
That's the way I feel about my poetry
It reminds me a lot of me
I reread it and rewrite it so often
By the end it seems unoriginal and plain
And all I can hope
Is the themes and ideas that were the inspirational genesis
Remain intact

Art walks a tightrope over the most unpredictable factor
The audience
They are the other half of art
Their power cannot be overstated
And as time progresses
Their power grows
And the importance of art always extends an equal distance
But the stronger art becomes
The more it asks of it's audience
In many cases
The audience is not ready to take the call
This is one of those times
Here at the current pinnacle of art
Surfing the web
A wonderful chance as
Art is a reflection of people and society
The Internet is people and society
But just as we listen to songs
To decide what concert to go to
Or watch trailers
To decide what movie to see
We like what we like
And put blinders on to find it
Like moths to fire

We could do amazing things
If we could harness the potential
Of our collective conscious
But the threat of losing our individuality
Is too great for us
Unable to accept
Our individuality is always in the context of our cosmic existence
We are part of something greater
And we can't escape that
Even in death
We feed what lies beneath
The memory of our lives
Shrinks to obscurity
The maggots that cover our corpses
Flourish to maturity
Everything this world creates is art
And we are it's most complex creation
Not necessarily the best
We just have the most parts
And the maggots that use our dead bodies for sustenance
Were once the monsters that roamed this Earth
They had no nationality
Or political affiliations
Or religion
And they're still here
Waiting to reclaim their throne
Once "smarter" species seek suicide

I started on the rooftop
The empty sky above was all I had
And all I needed
It was pure
Like a blank page
Waiting for a story to be written
But at the first sight of clouds
I fled to the top floor

There were fun and simple things on the top floor
Like Pokémon games
I got red, white, and blue
The monsters seemed so banal and repetitive
But nobody else would acknowledge it
Sending me into a dragon's rage
I tried using flamethrower on Charmander
Ending in futility as I ran out of burn heals
I looked out the window in frustration
Rain was falling outside
Inside
Patriotism was buffeted by the hail
So I devolved into a lower level

Going further down this building
For ***** and giggles
I found more ****
Less giggles
On a floor with a TV displaying the news
I was eager to learn about the world
Only to learn everybody hates each other
And nobody talks
Or cares
And the smartest person in the room
Is the one I agree with the most
Unable to view the tokens in my mind
As anything less than treasure
And those who try to persuade me otherwise
Are thieves
My spite steals tranquility
Like the persistent storm outside
My solution is shelter in lower levels

My experimentation on communication
With the general population
Had rained on my playful parade
But I felt very comfortable on a floor with friends
Until they saw through my charade
Discovering my emotions in disarray
As the people who made me love this building
Made me curse it's walls the more I loved them
I searched for the peaceful embrace of solitude
Once the storm outside transformed into a typhoon

I found that solitude
In a tiny bare room
With a syringe and spoon
I was unaware
That room was an elevator
That lowered me down the concrete void
As the hurricane outside rattled me violently inside my box
Trapped and lacking all agency
I resigned myself to wherever the elevator chose to take me

After the elevator finished pulling me into the basement
The tsunami seemed to cease
But I was buried under debris
I had to burrow out of my tomb
The dig was tedious and *****
My perseverance was heroic
But triumph was thwarted
When I reached the surface
To discover only wreckage remained
And when I looked up
I saw the building I inhabited
It's damaged facade
Made it clear
I would never visit those floors I missed on the elevator

Above my building
Hangs an empty sky
It's purity is a lie
The page was never blank
Just constantly written on and erased
To lure innocent readers into a tome

We all joined the party as friends
But the moment we were invited
We started being divided
Our agency we lose
To words heard in pews
Or shouted on the news
My once loyal glance
Becomes a soiled trance
As we put pettiness on the pedestal
And yearn to meddle in the petals
Of the roses that were frozen
For the sake of the chosen
By fate
To be the life of the event
But when strife is their intent
I find myself incensed
With problems I invent
My faults won't relent
My incessant repentance
Falls on deaf ears
Contempt it endears
But if we followed those apologies
Discoveries would be made
That'd somehow effect friendships
And their limits would be endless
But this party has a temptress
Wearing shiny things
Like expensive gold rings
We lust for the material
Forgetting the ethereal
Love becomes imperial
As we try to conquer each other
With kisses that feel like punches
And punches that feel like kisses
We want to break out of our solitude attendance
And our validation relies on another's dependence
When the music at the party
Is constant
Creating a craving for company
But the noises of social interaction
Never matched the beauty of the music
As life is weighed down by banality
We look to it's finality
And wonder if the party could've been different
Without the nuisance of the Devil's imprint

Last night I had a dream about you
We were at an event
Kissing passionately
And just as I was about to go down on you
You looked away
And saw other people watching
You pushed me away instinctively
And as you looked down at me
I could see the love of my only friend
Disappear behind an expression between disgust and pity
Right before I witnessed our friendship vanish completely
I woke up
Next to a cell phone
Conveying your invitation to an event
Unaware of the nightmare event I just attended with you
Unaware of all the other slumber parties we've been to
Unaware every moment I spend with you is the event

How can we attain the perspective of the introspective
When detectives aren't respected
By crowds drawn by clowns
Made vicious by the wishes
Of Hades with rabies

In order for humanity to progress
We must all consider our place in society
Emotional disclosure accelerates our human race
Until externalizations halt our momentum
We begin to drift
Discourse drifts toward absurdity
Absurdity drifts toward reality
Reality drifts toward Hell
And accepting reality
Means accepting the bullet's laughter
while it drifts through the innocent
Then we must accept where our souls have drifted
So our minds drift into fantasy
We wrap our abandon ties around our neck
And go to work

We live in a society
Where not giving a **** about what others think
Is actually encouraged
Yes, exchanging ideas can hurt
That's whiplash as we stop drifting and jolt in each other's direction
But communication
Takes detours to dead ends
As honesty and compassion
Elude us
In a self-perpetuating cycle
When education's only purpose
Is learning ******* each other
Before we know too much
Our species drifts toward extinction

Oh, what a horrible night
Definitely not late December back in '63
These are the Frankie valleys of my days

Night is always black
Night always comes back
Night envelopes us in the abyss
And makes us cherish light
Heightening our senses
To help us handle the unknown

When my days are filled with stimulation
The stillness of night sinks me
Into quicksand mixed by
The current of my mind
Overflowing into the sands of time
And reminds me
Of the stillness of my eyes locked on you
Or the stillness of my actions as you walk by
Or the stillness of my heart when you call me a ******

My frustration boiled
Night's black tar
So I bottled it up
Placed it in a syringe
And medicated my love with darkness

I worked my first job at the local Kroger's
People would leave with everything they wanted
And I'd push their empty carts back into the store
The artificial lights of the street lamps
Lacked warmth
Their hypnotic buzz highlighted
The stillness of night
Making me wonder if there was any way I could be happy
Similar to when activity would die down in rehab
A pitiful wretch left to his faculties
I'd stare out the window
Into the concrete chasm
And wonder if happiness could be found by someone like me

Night continues
Night confines
Day comes
And goes
Night returns
Night reburns
Night relearned
I really hate to see the day come to an end
It'd be alright if I was on the bay with a pen
But I live near sulfur vents
Inside a searing tent
Where the hellacious temperature rises rapidly
Despite the absence of the sun's warmth

The hellfire of night
Reminisces of those
I have thoroughly failed
And my overwhelming remorse
As I stare out my window
Into the bramble ravine
I wonder about the possibility of contentment
The stillness of night answers me
But at least now I can open the door
And charge into the night headstrong
To search frantically
For someone who
Erases my history
And writes my future
And makes me wonder if I could ever be happier

This country's being privatized
By politicians using private eyes
Manipulating through public lies
And their hate filled cries
The question becomes a stark why
We ask the dark unwise
Driving us to laced dimes
Or writing ****** rhymes
Love is the answer I surmise
Nobody else buys
Emotions have no value in the marketplace
Unless you're of a certain race
That reminds them of themself
Then they're more likely to share their wealth

We need more than paper *****
To tear down these paper walls
The order becomes too tall
When we apply an objective concept (currency)
To a subjective principle (value)
Our ideas of value get tangled
Our empathy is mangled
Our discourse becomes angled
Discussions turn to wrangles
And cats are bred Bengal
As our domestic lives
Never left the jungle
But there's always a rumble
Regimes always tumble
Humanity continues to stumble
Earth's health starts to fumble
Molesting the planet like a creepy uncle
Until we see our follies unfold
Then will we be so bold
To say we can do it on our own?

My tires went over the cracks in the road
As I drove by people standing on the sidewalk
Exchanging words, emotions, dreams
I passed them on my way to the cul-de-sac
To exchange money, drugs, humanity
The pedestrians penetrated me
With piercing eyes of persecution
They thought they hated me for being there
But their hatred is what led me there
They injected hatred into my life
The way I injected ****** into my arm
They injected banality into my life
The way I injected ****** into my brain
They injected austerity into my life
The way I injected ****** into my heart
They prayed that my sedation was of a more permanent nature
Before that they prayed for the permanent sedation
of my ****** nature
Wanting me to be fully awake
But not fully alive
They snuck into my mind
And exchanged emotions with emptiness
I snuck into their house
And exchanged furniture with emptiness
They exchanged words with the police
Who exchanged my freedom
For everyone else's peace of mind
But the exchange between the excommunicated
Exacerbated my exiled existence
The steel bars placed before me
Paled in comparison
To the bars that surrounded my heart
And faded from memory
When the Xanax bars entered my system
Until I couldn't walk anymore
Making me Professor X
Hiding out with the other mutants
Trying to lecture the world
That zombies turn to demons
If the exchange isn't examined
When they exit their enclosure
Sidewalk standers turn to explanations more elementary
Eliminating empathy
While elevating themselves above us
This is the epitome of our exchange

There are players in the penalty box that don't belong
Because the refs start tripping
When people skate on thin ice
But they're not fighting
Or slashing
The winning team keeps them down by charging them
Until some go to the box just for boarding
And that's only the icing

It's difficult to not misconduct yourself during this game
When the score is ran up
By a team with a wall for a goalie
And a rifle for a stick
They score when we hit the post
Yet we're penalized for trying to achieve our goals
Forcing us to defend
As they shoot at us
For being on a different team

We need to make a power play
And **** some penalties
Don't fear too many men on the ice
The gloves come off but it's futile
The refs never wore gloves to begin with
And apparently don't need them the way I do
I sit on the bench in defeat
Praying they have a ****** overtime
Because right now
In the time of regulation
We're stuck on ice
As the scoreboard hangs out of reach above us

The clock struck midnight
With an informative pang
I couldn't face it's music
So I turned counterclockwise
But time kept moving forward
As my wisdom dissipated
Bad times I anticipated

As I wandered through life
Burdens grew
Weight added with each step
My feet started to sink into the ground
So I got in my car
And drove
And kept driving
The more I traveled
The more I witnessed
The less I talked
As I grappled with the futility and necessity of communication

The clock warned of night's approach
I decided to continue driving
Luminous fireflies pelted my vessel
Their lamps exploding upon impact against my vehicle
The ability to destroy light
Exhilarated me
And I became addicted
To extinguishing that which shines
Until darkness flooded my engine
And an abysmal order was made by my abyssal odor

I had to exit my vehicle
And consult a mechanic
He explained my engine wouldn't work
Unless my windows were down
Which solved my darkness problem
But those ****** pests pervaded my car
Their locust glow disoriented me
The slight variations of their unique displays
Manufactured chaos within the light

My eyes grew accustomed to entropy
My brain grew accustomed to impairment
Commuters noticed my erratic driving
And offered to assist me
By attempting to ram me off the road
But the impenetrable light created a force field
Impalas couldn't run through
For my light bugs too much
Buffering me from others
And driving others from me
Leaving me alone
As a giant pulsating light that never stops moving
Is this how a star is born?

I need to change the circles I'm in
Because I fell into the trapezoid
Of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole
Making people believe I was a square
When I was really a rectangle
You just had to look at me from the right angles

The shape of things now
Is me looking at you from the wrong angles
You're pretty hot
90°
When you turn away from me your hotness doubles
180°
I think my Pompeii worm could survive the temperatures
But if you were to turn back around
No creature could survive
360°

The paradox of the parabola in my pants
Will never be solved
It's not your math problem
We're just two points on this rotating sphere
Where time is a straight line
And our's is a segment

I wish I understood the formula
So I could predict the outcome
But there are too many variables
Leaving my head spinning in circles
And myself running in circles
Meant to be avoided
Because within those circles are triangular trials
Where two points create a perfect line
And a third point ruins that

As points are added to the population
Lines only get larger
Like the welfare line
Mammoth shapes grow wider and more complex
Like the Pentagon
Lines become more easily crossed
Angles more easily tangled
And my freezing point becomes my boiling point
While I wish for a world more two-dimensional
Because once I consider depth
I realize I could never measure up to my ruler

My sympathy depleted
My friendships deleted
I have been defeated
By truths that hit so hard
I was decleated
By intense hatred deep-seeded
My history was repeated

I guess a three-armed mutant
Has no need for a right hand man
Until his leprosy riddled hands rot off
When he needs them the most
But his ***** limbs had been pretty useless for a while
Since he had lost feeling in them
He had to do a biopsy on his life
After the inaccurate results of the smear test
He took antibiotics to rid himself of the bacteria
But that didn't heal the nerve damage
He yearned for the rhetoric to be less inflammatory
So he took steroids
Transforming the ***** into an ogre
With no semblance of humanity
...Except for the people he devours
Their patience is delicious
He eats that first
Their pity is a delicacy
A rare treat
Their disgust tastes sour
But it's a feast
His cannibalism may seem callous
But the non-mutant lepers take Thalidomide
And get pregnant
Their kids come out defected
With an intense, deep-seeded hatred for three-armed mutants
And lepers and ogres look exactly the same
To those of another species

It makes sense that a mummy was required
For the exodus out of my king rut
By wrapping me in silk and satin
And embalming me with love
But my brief time as pharaoh ended
A tomb at the pyramid I once attended
Thoughts of my sins plagued me
Did I get too froggy?
Or maybe he just met another sarcophaguy
Or maybe I misunderstood him
When he invited me over for desert

I wanted to conquer you
Like Brendan Fraser
Now I just want to talk to you
Like John Edward
I tried unearthing artifacts to channel your spirit
But your grave had been robbed
And after swimming in denial for so long
Wandering through the Sahara feels wrong
Your carefree kingdom is where I belong
But the evasive Ra warned
That the ghosts of snake charmers
Are abrasive and horned

Originality is overrated
We are at our most original
The moment we are born
The rest of our lives is for specificity
Not for staring in awe at something different
But building with blocks already used
Style is arranging those pieces in ways
that are pleasing to our species
Humility is gaining pieces from others
Specificity is collecting as many components as possible
In the most unique manner available
Because when I'm traveling
I have a destination in mind
And it's not just anywhere
It's a specific city

We must sift through the mud to find the diamonds we build with
The dew forms on the grass at night
It's beauty eludes us until morning
As our terrace becomes a tower
Specialties become more apparent
As our tower becomes a tomb
Glory becomes more transparent
Not wanting to be a cliche is such a cliche
Tradition is our foundation
For we're only truly free once we're given constraints

Who do we ***** these facades for anyway?
Do we want everybody to enjoy our lobby?
Or do we want one person so interested
That they climb the rungs to the top floor?
I'd prefer the latter
So I continue growing new wings on my structure
To attain specificity
Until the day someone comes along and says
"Oh my God, I **** with this **** so hard, how did you know?"
I'll respond
"I have no idea what this is or how I built it."
But I built it for you

The greatest challenge my nature presents:
Love is harder to find
Hate is easier to find
Within myself and others

Is rejection different for me?
Everybody seems to know the pain of being unwanted
And idle threats and empty words are no stranger to rejection
But when you say you'll **** me if you ever see me again
The intention is clear
The existence of my attraction
Is grotesque beyond redemption
I thought I loved you...

When appreciation comes my way
It's superficiality amuses me
Because I know all that needs to happen
Is breaking down the wall to my mind
Or unlocking the door to my heart
And those appreciators will transform into detractors
Especially if the hideous leviathan approaches their vessel

Not finding women gross frustrates me
Because I have no reference point
For why people hate me so much
Which provides a reference point
For why I hate myself so much

It's difficult not to be dominated by this damnation
But there's no way people could understand
The daily subtle nuances
Why should they?
I don't constantly consider their lives either
Even if someone tried to comprehend my life
I'm not sure it's possible
I've been here the whole time and I'm still massively perplexed

I display my emotions
Disgust
I shroud my emotions
Indifference
I **** my emotions
Hatred
Is there no escape?
Even with sanctuaries along the way
Life feels like
Everybody swims in the ocean
While I'm resigned to my lonely oasis
Is it possible to feel more alone than completely alone?
Like a cockroach consigned to living under the refrigerator
It gets so cold and dark down here
I forage for crumbs only at night
Mortally afraid of human contact
For I know that the boot follows the light
And why not?
In a world where our priorities obstruct our compassion
How much consideration should a real human show
to a lowly maggot like me
When they have to worry about paying the exterminator?

Somewhere in the forest
There is a paradise
Hidden in a circus tent
Blocked by a bramble thicket

There are ways we want to live
And ways we must live
But a spectrum is discovered
When the way we must live
Diminishes the way we want to live
And the way we want to live
Dictates the way we must live

We eat and then ****
Life tastes adequate when we're dining
So we keep feeding
Our appetite becomes insatiable
We devour what opportunity grants us
Ignoring the rumbling in our stomachs
Until we must face the unpleasantness of our waste
Even when we're wise enough to know the effects of eating
We continue eating
Learning minor methods of mitigating damage to digestion
It becomes hard to swallow
That this is all it takes to be human
As humanity's power becomes planetary
Meals turn to feasts
And **** piles up
As the rancid fumes plague us with mental monsters
We yearn for a simpler time
When rations were the size of a sunflower seed
And excrement exited as ethereal gas
An age that never existed

The way I wanted to live became the way I had to live
But now that I'm living the way I have to
I can't tell the difference between what I want and what I need
I guess that could be a good thing
Because the space between what I want and what I got
Is where fulfillment is found

Just me
No entertainment
No stimulation
Just me
Then you came by
And installed a cable
Sports, politics, comedy, education
You had a very decent package
500 channels to show me the world
I figured I'd stay home for the rest of my life
And enjoy the romComcast upon me
By the advent of your cables

But there was a destructive storm
Power lines were snapped
And our cable went out
As I stood in the ruins
Of a house that once stood majestic
All I worried about was getting our cable re-installed
So I waited
On your ****** service
My age
Became a Time Warner
And severed strings
Were strewn on the steel scattered around me

Now that I've become a satellite in your life
I could provide you with all the same channels
If you'd just look up
But the cumulus clouds you conjure
Block our reception

As I drift out here in space
I can see everybody on Earth
Except for one man
Who's surrounded by a sea of swirling tsunamis
And a crowd of cut cords
And as I approach the chaos for a better view
I'm incinerated entering his atmosphere

Some people just can't handle driving
Everybody goes mad on this road at one point or another
The consideration is to keep the hatred within your own car
There are tools to be utilized
The escapism of music for one's health
The catharsis of muttering to oneself
Nobody should hold it against you
If you scream inside your car
They should understand
If you wanted to express yourself outwardly
You'd just flip them off
The abbreviated visual version
Of attempting to insert negativity into someone's life
It's healthy to be hurt
Your heart telling your mind that their hatred isn't normal
It is now on you to let sleeping dogs lie
And forgive those that trespass against us
Humor is my exit off the frigid freeway
Children in grown bodies
Their clothes are too big on them
Clearly confused about how to act
Taking every side road that catches their attention
That's funny enough for me

I've never flipped anybody off on the road
I learned from my father's story
She gave him every excuse to be angry
And he expressed that to her
The intended effect was reached
Her susceptible emotions were breached
Leaving a wise man to question his own actions
What was the point of that again?

That's why I try to keep an even keel
While sailing down the highway
There will always be people
Who honk at you for driving down the middle of the road
Remember to let those sleeping dogs lie
Or they'll be roadkill
And it's not nice to laugh at little people
But no one will know if it's from inside your car
And you can cozy up to the comfort created
By the signs on the road
Warning those people
They're driving in the wrong direction

We start the shift at the same pizzeria
Then we must go on deliveries
And individuality is born
Through varying methods and differing destinations
But distinction is mostly born through tips
The start of the drive is almost always somewhat positive
Unless you know you're getting a low tip in advance
The transaction is the singular event
It's outcome determines your demeanor for the drive back
To the store that is our equalizing ending
Deliveries are over at that point
The beginning and end are the same store
The middle is our transaction

Delivery drivers have lived a thousand lives
If they have delivered a thousand pies
Often getting low tips and asking why

I maximize the radio's volume
To avoid hearing
The roar of my engine
Indicating the speed of my delivery
But the lyrics
Sound so similar to my engine's audio
Tears form in my dreaming eyes
I wipe them away
To be presentable to the customer
Who doesn't tip in heartbreaking fashion
As I return to my vehicle
Tears are no longer available
Only silent contemplation
My thoughts void blaring music
As the reality of my delivery has been discovered
And the nature of my drive back dawns on me
I'm compelled to rush to the end of the journey
So I might possibly start a new delivery
Instead of the one I'm on
Wishing I had gotten better tips

The door to your heart is a horrifying puzzle
Your Jigsaw pattern I can't put together
The pieces I hold don't correspond
So I take parts from you
Which is making me Leatherface
And giving you a flatter taste
And the ****** chain I saw placed
Was pressed to your door with haste

You're a killer doll like Chucky
How could I have been so unlucky?
I can't even cut through your curtains
I become a cold corpse before the movie can start
Like a careless Jamie Lee Curtis
How long can such a curted courtship last?
Before I contrive the courage to crush
The Killer Croc in your rib cage
But the corrosive corrections officer
That is your puzzle piece door
Impedes all progress to your horror heart
Because the improper placement of pieces
Will make me think you're The Witch
When you tell me Don't Breathe

As my theater's lights dim
I scramble for an exit
But my only escape from the cinema is through your door
I grow cynically situated to the pitch black pictures
How could I expect to solve the riddle
Now that I need to?
Doors that can't be opened are walls
Speaking softly turns to brawls
As your pieces scattered like change
Your door completely wrapped in chains
I feel stupid and ashamed
Your puzzled movie's to blame

I peruse exhibits through the modern art museum
Nails hammered into wood
And trash strewn on the floor
I couldn't help thinking
What the **** is this ****?
These can't be the champions of modern art
Moonlight and Arrival morphed my empathy and perspective
The theater is fine
Music is there for those inclined to discover it
So what about visual art?
I know a few things for certain
Nails hammered into wood never changed my perspective
Nor does seeing a garbage can in a museum affect my empathy
Trash is not art
Trash is trash
Waste meant to be thrown in the proper receptacles
So as not to obstruct our view of true beauty

I will concede that
Beauty can be found in everything
Depending on analyzation variation
But those that live an examined life
Constantly see silver linings and sour grapes
Experiencing comfort in tundras to the point of banality
Those visions are much more interesting
in their organic state anyway
As opposed to an interpersonal expression of the seemingly obvious

So what to hang in an art gallery?
I have my own opinions
At this point in time
No visuals elicit more emotions
Than dank memes

When I'm consuming art
Questions are innate in my consumption
Is this a vessel for empathy?
Is this examining the human condition?
Dank memes meet those criteria
Satirizing the powerful
Highlighting emotions and virtues in ourselves
That we're either proud or ashamed of
Memes share a common thread with poetry
In the sense that everybody can create memes
Or be a poet
I get the impression that
Universality of art diminishes it's importance
In the minds of patrons
There's an element of truth to that
But what makes art special is quality
And what makes art truly special is high quality
And that's what belongs in museums

I have a light under my concrete
For others
It is fatally luminous
So it must be contained
I relegate rays to the darkest depths
So no light may exit
But then you walked on my blacktop
And cracks started to form in my road
Light began to escape
You were fascinated
I was terrified
Because the more you traversed my pavement
The further my road split
Brilliant flashes with increasing frequency surfaced
Your curiosities were piqued
Mine were plagued
By what lies underneath
And when it would blind you

I tried to warn you from inside my cocoon
You said you'd purchase sunglasses
You never understood
This light
Shatters glass like Stone Cold Steve Austin
It's intensity is a stunner
It may be the Sun itself
But you insisted on continuing
To travel down this path

As models import wrinkles
Potholes become sinkholes
Fears were realized
Senses overwhelmed
Skin burned
Blackened
Into something unrecognizable
As all signs of life fade
I'm stranded on a crumbled road
With only sightless cadavers to lead me home

The Syrian process is a serial problem
When the disenfranchised
Cause a landslide
Of historical hatred
The key that ignites
Business and commerce
Wildfire hearts
And boiling skin

The harsh outbreak of deadly cholera
The blockade of the forceful armada
The coalition forces
Run wild like horses
The bombs keep falling
The people cry
The engine keeps stalling
The car dies

The white phosphorus
Brought by the white prosperous
Can burn to the bone
And wounds can ignite up to three days later
But the people of Raqqa
Are used to reigniting scars
They're used to searing flesh
That melts like tar
Where this will go
No one knows how far
Machines must be sustained
Hearts will be untamed
Lives constantly rearranged

A human rights activist attempts to send a report
What he's witnessed in Raqqa
Injustices; perceived and objective
But Hellfire
Turns the Internet cafe
Into a senseless violence display
The dirt, blood, and bodies
Mixed and spread like the art
That was ignored to lead to this quagmire

Whether this calamity started
At the Melian dialogue
Or a market diagram
Or a martyr's diatribe
What we need now is an m.d. to suture the wounds
But who will save us?
When noble protectors are blown up
And the reigniting scars scorch the hands that heal

You make me feel so stupid
When we play chess
The way you en passant all nonchalant
You chase me into castle
From there I watch you intently
The way the Russians watched Bobby Fischer
In his hotel room
But while I wait for a move to develop
I become the Boredest Spazsky
My mind in a stalemate
As I try to crush your Sicilian defenses
As much as I harangue
You leave me in zugzwang
Which confuses my feeble mind
For I may be a pawn
But I'm the king pawn
Which means the board usually revolves around me
But your queen takes that instantly
And I'm left in a fool's checkmate

I wish you could see things from my side of the board
You'd see how desperately I wanted the king
All the complex and unique obstacles in the way
But instead you just sit there
And laugh at me losing all my pieces trying to reach you

I quivered in the arena
As thousands of people screamed at me
All because I wanted to touch the *****
I guess I play a different football

Those Hartford wailers weren't there
When I was on the ice
Trying to play goalie to the problematic pucks
All I had was my blocker
And all I could do was deflect

Yet those same people
Try to convict me in the tennis court of public opinion
Just because I wanted to make my own racket for a change
Is that really my fault?
Why should I listen to these people
When zero and love have the same meaning?

Am I beholden to those
That wanted me to kneel in the endzone?
They're the people who separated me from myself
Now that I'm running back
They're claiming they were my safety
But there was never a decent referee
Only people that wanted to see me in stripes
But here's the kicker
I'd forgive them all their past interference
If they'd just stop challenging my plays now

I'm extremely disorganized
I don't know what belongs where
Take my eyes for example
I can't find a place to rest them
I tried setting them on you
But everyone agreed that **** wasn't working
They explained that an organized man
Adheres to categories
And you and I
Are not of a kind
I attempted to argue that you organized me
My heart
My mind
You folded me neatly
When you beat me
You always made sure to set me aside when you were done with me
You'd place me in a bin
Or release me to the wind
Yet there was a burdensome fault in my littered logic
They explained that an organized man
Is clean
I must use eyes that are sanitized
To see how we're not categorized
And avoid your matador eyes
Because things will get messy
When the bull in your fists
Sees the roses in my heart
My humanity starts to part
And my wishes I begin to opine
For the nature of a bovine
So I wouldn't misplace my eyes
And be what I'm classified
But that nature eludes me
As do most things
On account of me being disorganized and all
But I'm a quick learner order burner page turner
I may not know what belongs where
But I know I belong neither here nor there
Making my eyes not belong anywhere
This is what develops my entropy stare

These optical illusions
Create an optimal confusion
When eyes are a welcome intrusion
To the brain's inevitable conclusion

We stared into the mystic mirror
I witnessed everything I ever wanted in life
All you witnessed was just two people standing there
The transparency you cast upon me
Reminded me of how the plumes of **** smoke
Were never as thick as my problems
And as those clouds left my mouth and dispersed into the air
I saw your image
Preserved in briefness

It's a shame how my magician's mind
Summons smoke and mirrors
Nobody else believes me
But magic is the only way to explain you
The way you turned me invisible
Was spectacular
Your methods of sawing me in half
Certainly weren't natural
And your teleportation demonstration
Left me suspended in ice
So I guess I'm to Blaine
For the mirrors I erected
And the truth they reflected
Because now I'm lost
In what I refuse to call a funhouse
As I search frantically for some ancient tomb
That might reveal your brilliant incantations
Attempting to ignore the horrid revelation
That every spell I learned
Had been based in your arcane aura
And all the power I had gained
Had been based in your enchantment

I want a magician
Not an illusionist
So what does it mean when your illusions are so magical?

When education was restricted
They ran to religion
When solace was stripped away
They ran to martyrdom
Loved ones fell
Hated ones rose
As hearts sank
To the depths of the maelstrom
Fueled by the unholy trinity
Value, vindication, and violence

Bombs decimate Afghan villages
With the precision
Of a needle hitting a vein
And as casually
As a contractor putting a dollar in his pocket
The rubble of their town
Lost in a mist of dust
The rubble of their minds
Lost in a mist of vengeance

The rabid dog chases the subjugated raccoon
The raccoon discovers a sacred hole and hides in it
The predator attempts to encroach the void
The raccoon quivers in it's sanctuary shelter
Finding relief as the hound becomes stuck
And laughs as the infected beast starves to death
But ecstasy turns to terror
As the raccoon realizes it's only way out of this hole
Is being blocked by the gargantuan corpse
Terror turns to sorrow
As the raccoon starves to death
Alone
In the dark
It's holy land now hell
For once it had protected the raccoon from unbridled rabies
But since the hound's death
It's Cerberus size obstructs all progression
Holes become graves
And prey are left to pray
For someone to drop a bomb and clear a path

I'm so grateful I could die
And then I'd be the Grateful Dead
For every Touch of Grey
You erase
And paint intricate beauty I cannot equivocate
The enigma of your mind
Matches the confusion in my heart
What's the point of talking to someone
if you know what they're thinking?
I enjoy the intense haze
Of your rearranging maze
It's complexity fascinates me

Some of my favorite moments are when
I laugh hysterically as the tears fall down
And you're there
To hit my waterfall with your lightning
My emotions get so charged
As you pump electricity into my current
Making you the conductor
On this lifelong train ride
That's definitely been through some valleys and tunnels
But as we continue to scale this mountain
Negative thoughts can creep in
I wonder if you're disgusted by me
Or what you'd call me if you hated me
And as the tears fall down
I look to the heavens
And laugh hysterically
Thanking God I don't have to live in a world like that
I'm so ******* grateful

I'm such a hypocrite
I was adamant all that time
That I was a horse
And didn't want anybody to learn
When I formed wings
Guess that makes me a hippogryph
That's what made high school so difficult for me
I couldn't handle the new emotions
Guess it was my hippocampus
People had their own answers
Smoke some *** or lust
But my love was the size of a
Hippopotamus
I needed someone to promise they loved me
And would never hurt me
Guess that's a Hippocratic Oath
But how can I expect anybody to profess their love to me
When my trigger is stuck?
I need to throw a hip check on my life
And hip-hop away from this place
But
My feet are still
Hands on hips
I'm such a hypocrite

I fell in love with you
More accurately
I fell in love with the feelings you transferred into me
But those mutinous emotions betrayed me
The moment you did
The withdrawal from your love was too intense
I desperately needed something to replace those feelings

I always said I could run from anything
as long as it didn't involve running
But after walking with you for so long
It's hard to change my pace
The path too tough to face
Your memories fueled the chase
Until I found my escape

The kneading needles turned me fetal
Shocked my veins like eels
Fetuses aren't the most ambulatory
The race became a marathon story
Your effervescent ghost pursued me
Breaking the sound barrier to reach me
I floated vacantly in the stew of your noise
The needles touched me
The way you wouldn't
The needles bled me
The way you would

Then the race ended as abruptly as it started
Only to begin another race
...But things were different this time

Slugs waved as they passed a sprinter
Tormented by a lane filled with needles
The hostile crowd watched with pity
As a once great athlete
Was forced to acknowledge his janitorial duties
The fickle mob cheered with triumph
Upon his valiant return
He was quicker than ever before
And the masses exalted him
He ran faster than everybody
And waited for nobody
Anxious they might reveal his secret
That his speed was derived from his feather weight
After the needles hollowed out his insides

I see the rabbits feeding on the grass
My heart is filled with joy
Their life is precious
I see the vultures feeding on the rabbits
My heart is filled with joy
Their life is precious

That's what I never understood about coffins
Life is about expanding your prison cell as much as you can
There's no requirement to be contained once it's over
Our nutriance to the Earth
Is our nutrients into Earth
All creatures that die on this planet
Become a part of it
The Debt they paid to the future
The Debt that is always collected on
We travel nonchalantly on their corpses
Wishing they could appreciate
That each and every one of them
Was one step closer to sentience
This planet's passion project

Could the first single-celled organism
Comprehend my humiliation?
When the first creature walked on land
Was it anticipating my shame?
Did it sprout wings
To give me nightmares of dying in an airplane?
Did ancient Neanderthals dance around a fire
To reenact my adolescence?
Could mystic voodoo shaman
Cure my lack of agency?
Or did lost American tribesmen
Prophesize the complexities of my love?
I can feel all these ******* looking up at me from the ground
And it's just me
As I accidentally burn my notebook with a cigarette

In my neighborhood
Your hedge presses against my hedge
In my dreams
Your leg presses against my leg
In my neighborhood
People hate me
In your mind
You overrate me
In my neighborhood
****** burns the sorrow
With you
There's always tomorrow

Neighbors are the worst
They unquench
Labors of thirst

They're also the best
When it comes to people
They're the rest

If you could do me a favor
And not be my neighbor
I need you in my house
You're stuck in my head
You're my louse

Then the neighbors foreclosed my home
Morphing me into the roaming gnome
Does a homeless man have neighbors?
Like a wild dog
With no bone to savor?

It just breaks my heart
When people run each other off the road
With their hate filled cart

In my mind the roadblock is your face
Through the window I see the hate
We'll use my roadblock to erase

You and I need to Tom Cruise together
Because I only know A Few Good Men
And you're the Top Gun
And I am a little self conscious about
how much I enjoy the first half of Cocktails
Because this kind of love can be Risky Business
When I'm with you I don't want to see the Edge of Tomorrow
Nor do I feel like I'm one of The Outsiders anymore
We should get really weird
and try some Eyes Wide Shut ****
But I'd settle for a Jack or a Reacher from you anytime
But how do I precipitate our connection, Rain Man?
It just seems like Mission: Impossible.
I stare vacantly into the Vanilla Sky
As these Days of Thunder last too long
Without you
The difference is Knight and Day
For in your Endless Love
I was merely Collateral
Now passively watch as I fall into Oblivion

Gather 'round children
To hear the story of
Obsessionman
Our extremely watchful protector

Bitten by a radioactive trumpeter at a young age
He obtained the super power
Of constantly thinking about the moment he was bitten
His power only grew stronger with time
When people told him his power was ****
His power grew
When people mentioned the toxicity of his radioactive waste
His power grew
And when he encountered his arch nemesis; the trumpeter
Everything grew

You should've seen how fast he flew
He soared quicker than
All the ******* he had once considered important
But when flying at such high velocities
Civilians become interlopers
And interlopers become super villains
Which is no laughing matter
Aquaman went comatose
And Comaman got aqua toes
Sacrifices we were willing to make
But then God intervened
And Obsessionman ***** Him
Which we all agreed was kind of ****** up
Decidedly so...

I mean...
What can you say about your hero when he ***** God?
But that's the beauty of Obsessionman
All he requires from us
Is our disgust, indifference, and hatred
To feed his strength
Until the day he is powerful enough
To fulfill his destiny
And face his arch nemesis
The trumpeter

Somebody call Ben Affleck
We got phantoms in this *****
This endless haunted mansion
Their presence pervades
No company
In this lonely labyrinth
Only phantoms
The only figures resembling humanity
Are the corpses of those before
Who couldn't navigate this torturous structure
And of course, the masquerading phantoms
My soul they aim to puncture

I tried closing my eyes
But I just kept running into walls
I tried sleeping through it
But I just sank deeper into the basement
When I attempted to join the phantoms
You were there
You waited until I was hanging there
On the rope
And eviscerated everything
Lycanthrope
The rope in shreds
Your heart then fled
Leaving me alone again
Lying in my exhausted blood
The phantoms sensed my desperation
And took advantage of my disorientation
So I ran to the darkest recesses of the basement
To retrieve my blindfold and sledgehammer
But is my hammer powerful enough?
Will visual impairment abstain the trickery of ghosts?

I put Sisyphus to shame
With the determination I utilize to demolish these walls
But the phantoms are devious
They ***** new facades
Thicker, sturdier, with odder textures
I destroy them all the same
It just takes a bit more time
And time means nothing
To a man who's sole purpose is knocking down walls
And cowering from apparitions
Yet a man means nothing
To a time ruled by phantoms

The teacher stands before her detained class
And from behind her authoritative podium
She equates abortion to the holocaust
A dangerous comparison in an educational garrison
But the other children nodded their heads in agreement
A benefit of having the ear of youth
Is being able to infect it with your own toxic ideology
What bacteria did this ear infection consist of?
Conservatism? Religiosity? Chastity?
The answer was depressingly simple
I was the only one there unaware of Fox News
I was a casualty of the confusion
The confusion engendered
By venom thoughts placing politic-colored glasses
on the entrenched masses
Entertainment
Used to convey anger and hate
Emotions worth conveying
But not living in
The intents and desires of their vulnerable receivers
become an incongruous disaster

What could I have done?
Minds as still as the pharaohs heart
We live in a society where we're all infantilized by one myth
Good and evil
Looking back on what I did do
I didn't do much
But I did do something
I didn't nod my head like a ******* sycophant

Nobody noticed me under the water
Drowning silently
But now I've reached the surface
Screaming violently
People seem to have a problem with the volume
My life is at risk of bleeding into their's
Oh, look at me whining for attention
ATTENTION!
Everybody wants attention
I'd rather be someone who says things for attention
Than someone who never says anything
And never gets any attention
When people see me I hope they see themselves
Reflection
They just look right through me
Rejection
All this in search of the grand attention
It shoots through you like a bullet
Then washes over you like a wave
But it's different for me...
It explodes inside me like an atomic bomb
And then pours out into the canyon that separates me from myself
They say a dog will **** anything
I disagree
It all depends on how much you beat them
Strike them constantly until their sexuality is
Strained
By the constant barrage of pain and damage
Strained
By the treachery and cruelty of their owner
Strained
By shame

Deep connections are made
Labels cut them like a blade
They say I have abandonment issues
Is it so wrong to miss you?
They say I'm co-dependent
And I should be mo' repentant
But I am the moon
And you are the Earth
And our love is the sun

Unfortunately
Here in the logical place
Everything revolves around the revolver
A religion of hate
Enforced by the state
We live in a world that makes us love to feel ashamed
And ashamed to feel love

Then the name of the game
Becomes watching the shame light a flame
In the fires of passion
Our love burns
Like a matchstick
But then the fire runs out
Our love sputters from the spout
And I'm stuck cleaning your extinguished rubble
The steam rises from my heart
Like the smoke from a revolver
I never meant to involve you
In the maze of my desires
One path led to you
The other was where I retired
To contemplate my life
And those that hate me
They are the sun
And I am the Earth
Their hatred is my moon and it revolves around me constantly

Hey Mr. Screaming Rock and Roll Guy
Why is your music so violent?
Studies show that calm and tranquility are healthier
I wonder if it's because your music captures a feeling
That piece of me that feels good
When I hear a story of a kid going to school
and shooting a bunch of people
His vengeance satisfies me
Not revenge on any one man
But society itself
But that's the way kids are raised these days
Because here in America
We end the 4th of July with a big finale

When I'm with other people
Their mere presence reflects my character
Their strength validates me as an individual
Friends sneak away and doubt creeps in
Who am I without my companion justifiers?
Nobody
So I'm going to build an army
And we're going to storm the walls of hatred
They'll throw their bombs
******, ******, ****
Usually more specialized weapons appear as well
All trying to use shame to strip us of our very humanity
We disarm their shame with pride
Not pride in the way one is born or lives
But pride in the face of those who tell us we should feel ashamed
Those hate filled walls will be trampled by our friendship
Once we've infiltrated the pitch black city
We'll seize their holy temple
And find me
Naked, crying, alone
We'll pick me up and dust me off
After all, I have an army to build

I could've sworn I saw a younger version of you
going in the opposite direction on High Street
I wanted to stop and say something
But I had to die a gruesome death
It's just that you looked like the edition of you
I'm ashamed to have tainted
And we've been down this road before...

Like the time we saw that guy hit that telephone pole
I knelt in the muck with a stranger in my arms
His fleeting life transfixed me to his world
But once life returned
My interest was gone

Similar to the time I saw that fox dying in the street
I left the solitude of my car to gaze into it's primal eyes
Without communication
All we could do was cry together
I couldn't decide whether to **** it or care for it
So I did neither
And just drove off
I understand it may seem cowardly
But the thought of it living and continuing
to suffer and survive was too beautiful
And the thought of responsibly nurturing it was too repellent
Not to mention those things can be dangerous
no matter how small they appear
I guess what I'm saying is bad things happen when I leave my car
Usually, I drive with the windows up and the doors locked
Loneliness fills the cabin
I opened my doors but nobody entered
Only tears filled the cabin
They cascaded out onto the road
Forming ice in the subzero winds
I lost all control
And just before I crashed
I could've sworn I saw a younger version of you
going in the opposite direction on High Street

The clouds separated the Sun from my life for too long
I wondered if it even existed
And if it existed
Would it know I existed?
It's warm companionship eluded me
I was frozen in the wastelands
I donned my armor of ice
And embraced all that is frigid and bleak
My feet turned into rockets as flowers bloomed all around me
I rode headfirst into the sky on a jet of pure nature
I cut through the friction in the air
And exploded through the clouds
The Sun's disorienting light loved me
Without vision I flew to it's warmth
When I reached the Sun I kissed it on the mouth
and we danced around the galaxy
And the Sun radiated our love to every living creature in the universe

But the Sun abandoned me out in space
The Sun returned to giving life to all
And I am but one
I just thought that maybe I could help it give life
Because at one point I was a star
Now I'm just dust
Is it so selfish to want it's power for myself?

I've been floating in darkness for a while
And I feel very Alien: Isolation right now
But this is no game
And Sigourney Weaver couldn't fight my monsters
Game over, man