I get the crust and the gristle of a thistle once a missile shooting out into the sky and I cry, wonder why. Never sure what I feel for the meal of a deal and then words more like air slip the breeze in my hair, butterflies in the skies killing what kept my alive. Oh too bad, well how sad, if the songs last lines din't matter it'd harm, it'd make the soul so very mad. Here I fall, there I stand like a robot dancing to the tunes. It's demand. Hear I laugh, hear I cry. I hear the screams and feel the burn, so why? Why unsure, of what's telling me my life is so impure. Threatened heart, from the strings that wrap it, tearing it apart. Feel the clench of a bundle of what you yourself have drench and so benched. And you threw to me the horror show, I never so have thought would reckon me to be. I, to be, it's master and it's longing family, here I cry. Hear "I" cry. For I exist in heart, but never, not in mind. There I stand once again as a memory of all that I pretend. If I tried, to be real, the pieces fall apart inside. So I hide, then I quiver and I shake as 'me' is inside. I can touch to the shelter covered in the unbelieving, underachieving to be who I know I am to be. Or at least what you see. I crush the old me and start anew, though I grew. I, immortal to myself have stomped the true. And I become something greater than simple little shrew. Do not lie! For I see with one eye, the look through me. What you see is a host, not the ghost, that lives on. "Awh, look at me. I'm so strong!" Laugh along. Child there. Where? Oops, forgot to care. Now I stare, towards the end that's never ending like this script. Never ending. Twist and bending. Don't kid me, I'm no kid. I'm the body of a youth, but I am dead. I've destroyed myself, if others didn't do a perfect job. Hold up stop! I'm letting go, a bubble that will pop. It will burst, destroying me, if it doesn't **** me first. Here I stand. Hear I cry. There I go. I have died.

I've stopped caring if people call me Mr.
I'm resigned sometimes to fade away
like a moldy apple rotting quietly in the bin
it was only a taste of me that ever counted

but I'm not done yet
(sigh)
babies...this is the rowdy bus ride
on the long windy island road
shouting *******
as the driver power swerves around the sunday driving couple
in a flash, white knuckled eye to eye with the semi driver
not even surprised
that we are colliding
no-one else seems to notice
this ride ends too,
a red house on a hillside over looking the pacific
monkey toucan sloth
a private pool
infinity style, ends at the edge and tumbles into what
nothing to signify
no goals met
I'm just alive,
perhaps underachieving,
this number on my check is a third of last years take
maybe I'm not charging enough
maybe I'm working too hard or not eating
I've gained no weight since college
and I barely seem to care
I learn night moves, sometimes I can sing
fearless full throated belts

a sign in some ohio river town
in front of some church
that some people still go to
and maybe get charged at the door
says
pray ceaselessly
they say
yoga is a way of being
a person goes to the gym for an hour
but what about the other 23
I keep my back straight and my breath full
and count a days labor
for ******* in my *****
and keeping my triangles engaged
just like Bomchew and Paul taught me
an old lady smiles at me in a white stair case, calls me cowboy
she said she saw me standing in court
a judge threatening to throw me in jail
and said to herself
now theres a man

She's a tortured soul
In a privileged girl's world
It's hard for me to imagine
Not being able to justify my pain
In a world where there's not supposed to be any problems
That seems to be the problem
I'd be the first to throw a fit
If she ******* about the money she had
But we all forget
All the money in the world
Can't hug empty arms
Or catch a falling heart
She breaks like the rest of us
But fights through the pain
'Cause there's not supposed to be any problems
For a girl with her last name
Like Roger Clemens and his ****** sock
She marches on with a bleeding heart
She puts on fronts
Like little black dresses
It's as far as she can get
From where all the stress is
When she's not being herself
She's being what she is
Rich, white, and beautiful
Nothing wrong with that
Till you go home and turn off your lights
Your shadow can't tell you what color you are
Your 700 thread-count sheets forgot how to add
And your mirror's not working right tonight
All you're left with is the dark
And the pain in your heart
And we all know that's a deadly combination
Whether you live in a box
Or a mansion
Daemons still torture your thoughts
But just like Van Gogh and his missing ear
She marches on with haunted dreams
Yeah
She tried to shop her way out of this
One progressively lower top at a time
But it doesn't matter how **** you are
Or how many guys are looking at you
If he's not
There's no fooling yourself here
It was all for him to begin with
And so she finds another problem
Her daddy's credit card can't buy her out of
And the burden of her last name
Continues to weigh down her soul
Always working on herself
Learning languages, instruments, diets
Like she's out of Jane Austin's
Demented 1800's stock market
Just trying to raise her profit shares
Like a Kennedy and their legacy
She marches on underachieving royalty
Her therapist wishes he could prescribe her a bottle of wine
Knows sober she'll never give him the whole truth
But a word of warning
Once she starts she won't stop till she comes to
And it doesn't come out in a narrative either
So you have to sift through all the
I'm-fat's, the nobody-likes-me's, and the do-you-think-I'm-pretty's
But if you can do that
You'll get to the good stuff
To the he-hurt-me's, the I'm-lonely's, and the I'm-not-over-him's
The my-parent's-don't-approve's, the I-feel-abandon's, and the I'm-not-over-him's again
And if all that sounds familiar
It's because they're universal
Heart breaks don't check credit scores
Daemons don't need bank statements
You're never too rich to cry
Like Cinderella and her glass slipper
She marches on with a limp

Aiming for the stars
But cannot reach the trees
Trying to move mountains
But running from the bees
Tryna swim away
but i can't wade in water..
Tryna warn the sheep..
Before they all get slaughtered..

and
The pickles
on the shelves
in the condiment aisle

are readying
themselves
for the winter

The half-sours
stand at attention

The garlics stand
at parade rest

Dill chips are
stacked so
their eyes cannot see
out the jar

Mrs. Smith's bread & butter
pickles will not be on sale
again until late Spring
(so tasty are these)

What a long cold winter
awaits those

underachieving cucumbers

Addicted to the green leaves, you're a caterpillar crawling in the dirt
Conflicted and sick as he heaves, after looking up a butterflies"s skirt

If he could only see, potentially, what he could be, if he"d simply just look up
I continue my plea, eternally,  to help set him free, have a drink from my cup

I know you waited a whole extra week to finally come out of our mother
But the Responsibility rests on me, I refuse to give up on my only brother

There"s no place like home
Unless its abusive and broken
There"s no chance to roam
Unless actions are outspoken

I'm afraid of success, because I'll finally run out of all the excuses
Many sins to confess, none worse than underachieving all our uses

If you could only fear less
If you could only focus more
Take a hit just to relieve stress
Wake up in a city called *****

You"re still looking down crawling on the ground
With so so many women lost waiting to be found
You should be out up here with me flying around
Butterflies attract without even speaking a sound

We"re born with no parachutes and I'm a frequent flyer
So please stop wallowing down in the muck and the mire
Come flourish with me and lets set the ******* world on fire
You're my only thicker than water, join me before we expire

All Understanding uncovers
ugliness, usury.
Unifying utopians
uncorruptable,
unmoveable.

Dashing Prophets promoted
promiscuous personalities.
Promethus’s powers
persisted
purposelessness.

Do Postmodern proletariats
protest phantoms?
Puckering proudly,
pondering
paraphrases?

If Egyptians engineered
excessive egoists,
Englishmen evolved
ethical
endgames.

Tradition Rules reformed
rednecks, remobilizing,
romanticizing, recursions
rose
remarkably.

If Caesar costumed
cabals crafted carefully,
Christianity calibrated
circumferential
conflicts.

Vigilantism Unveils unlucky
usurper, undoes underachieving,
unemotional, unconsciousness
unlearning
unhumanness.
  
Every Tadpole’s talents
triumphs titan’s tricks
tip toeing
towards
truth.

glass half empty or half full?
why do we even ask at all?
all this thinking takes its toll
on our society of analysis
anti-action and paralysis
it really is a dangerous thing
overphilosophizing i mean
we've fallen victim to the allure
of thinking that we can cure
anyone anything and or any problem
with enough thinking tinkering and or solving
but truly there's really got to be
more to cure the modern malady
of paradoxes and dichotomies
and meta-epistemologies
we've come too far for us to merely be
just because i think we think
if i can really only see
what's standing right in front of me
once it's gone to the periphery
then i'm positive that we'll all have been
over inacting and underachieving
for far far too long


we think too much and do too little
it's not like it's a test or a riddle
we write creeds and manifestos
but there's no credence manifested
if we don't give precedence
not to kings queens or presidents
but to becoming a society-
a people who won't go quietly
whose thoughts and bright ideas
suddenly begin to coalesce
into lives being lived
to the absolute fullest
we need something more
we need a paradigm shift
made from something much more sure
than a philosopher's two cents
but if we don't act now
if we procrastinate and wait
our dreams will just be dreams
and tomorrow will be too late
so then-
if you don't mind
instead of stopping just to analyze and think
i think i'll take that half of a glass
and maybe take a drink

I'm high on likes and retweets
The hearts, and flames and repeats
I'm an underachieving overachiever

A social media facade I've designed
A highlight reel, my life defined
But behind the screens, a different tale
A search for meaning, a life to hail

The validation I seek, a fleeting thrill
A moment's high, a lifetime's fulfill
I yearn to break free from this digital stage
And find my true self, in a real-life page

They say underachieving is an overrated skill
But Who's better qualified for your time to ****
So let me proceed to bleed just to prove I'm alive
You'll never have to leave if you constantly arrive

They say Confucious once said that he's the true root of all confusion
And stars are really just God's making love, we call it nuclear fusion
Metaphorically I smite thee with blasphemy as I come to a conclusion
Then I left somehow forgetting to remember time is merely an illusion

They also say most communication is nonverbal and it crept in my head
I had so many questions to ask, but figured they were better left un-said
And as I opened my mouth I saw a sign with the words "better off read"
It was the manual to the future, "Stare at your phones until your dead"

Apathetic, acataleptic, anthropomorphic abstractions aided an anorectic.
Biology and botany, both broad, but bellicose blossoms bring banality.
Considered communication can conceal certain capabilities- cruelty without causality.
Delirious dreams of divination dwindle during daytime's discontinuation.
Echoing and eerie, ecclesiastical ecstasy eclipses eccentric ebullience in extroverts.
Face-to-face farewells facilitate friendships & fatigue families, familiar in fantasies.
Grace goes gardening, garnishing and ghostwriting, good god, glistening a glittery glaze over.
High, hovering, hallucinating helps habits' hardening and hiding in hazy harmony.
Introduced ideologies, indeed, illustrate ingenuity in idiosyncratic individuals I impersonate.
Jumbled and juiced juxtaposition of jitterbug and jazz justifies jovial jumpiness- jeez.
Karaoke on ketamine, a kettleful of kerosene, kindling kisses, knocking knees.
Last but not least, the lawless laying low are liberated, later learning large life lessons.
Mainly markedly meticulous, maids manage the meagerness of mess, mollifying mothers.
Namely narcotics, not either naivety nor narrow-mindedness, necessitates a nosedive.
Obligations to obtain n occupation only obfuscates obvious obstacles, and oftentimes objectivity.
Pervasive paradoxes parody people's past perceptions, predominantly persistent patterns.
Quick-witted quarrelers query quantifiable qualities, quotations never quivering or quiet
Rickety, raggedly radios ring with ragtime, rainbows remain a rarity.
Sick, staggering students suddenly spill, saucer-eyed, onto streets and scatter.
Thrown together, the tank top, the trousers, tempted and tongue-tied them, totally.
Underestimation ultimately undid the understanding of ubiquitous underachieving underdogs.
Variability in validity and value variance violates the valuer's viewpoint very vividly.
Wandering war-torn wastelands, wayfarers weaken, wait for water, wearily wonder at weather
Xenophobic xylophonist's x-ray wouldn't show his xanthopsia, xeroxed in the xanthic Xs of his eyes.
Your yawning and yelling is yellowing your youthful yearnings for yesterdays.
Zigzagging, zany zookeepers zestfully zone out with zoom lenses, to see from A-Z.

Being a teenager is dodging bullets of petty rumors and gossip speeding towards you like heat-seeking missiles in the middle of the hallway and
Hiding from the shadows and trying to find the light simultaneously and
Aiming to please everyone, especially your parents who don't pay attention to the important things like whether or not you're still sane unless you ask them please and
Floating somewhere in the middle of over and underachieving so as to remain afloat and
Constantly battling the stress that wages a war on your body and mind and
Falling in and out of what can only be described as the adolescent definition of love and
Wishing you could sign a peace treaty with wherever all these emotional bombs are flying from and
Getting crushed under the pressure that
Builds and
Builds until you
Bend and
Bend until you finally
Snap.
And break down in tears, exhaustion and strife.
And when you regain enough strength, you wave your tiny white flag in surrender,
Hoping to put life on pause, even just for a moment
In a feeble attempt to prepare yourself for the next attack
Because these ruthless soldiers don't care if you can't handle the pain that they inflict and
Without skipping a beat, a machine gun opens fire on your soul, leaving holes that make you question who you are and
Your wounded, empty shell of a body is all that's left laying motionless on the ground and
You hope like hell you can survive this teenage battlefield.

I have a whole list of things to do;
Not just for myself, but for others too.
Life is short and yet I do not care;
This is my honest truth laid bare.
Underachieving is a trait of mine;
A recurring statement, an obvious sign?
So far I'm surviving,
Not thriving.
Why won't I just do it?

She was a flower wild
Wearing thrift store pair of shoes
Holes in sleeves of her hoodie
Jeans in all types of blues

Knit sheets unmade on queen size bed
Dreams Jersey or maybe New York
Knows she's destined for simple things
An average underachieving dork

Pizza breath
Bloodshot eyes
Red as petals blooming
A rose
Whiskey shots over wine any day
Toothpaste on tip of her nose

Alabaster skin and crooked smile
Knotted shoelaces on feet
Hair tied
A messy braid
Freckled embrace emitting heat

Shoulders carrying world
The burden of it's weight
Too prideful to ask for a helping hand
When the heaviness is too great

She believes love to be tangible word
Favorite songs are always sad
Can catch her staring out the window
Reminiscing joy she long ago had

She agreed to attend therapy
But an appointment was never made
Voice was simple to convince
Body harder to persuade

you need an excuse,
a quick simple lie
rolling off the tip of your tongue
to disguise the true reality
of underachieving;
there's actually no reason.

mannerisms containing grace and beauty vanquish
when conquering the internet's cruel anguish.
feeding sins with apples that bloomed in the evening
of february to survive in a fast world unreal to the underachieving.

in solitude, her essence blooms despite her
bruised virtuous soul that screams her damnation.
in isolation, the substance of his being thrives in the
waiting room of circumstances that bring prosperity.

reprise a revolution for the modern age of devils,
let them build e-tombs for the sensational forgotten.
encourage the death of language for the birth of a new culture
where the muted can still share words for the world to publicise.

beware of trolls lingering between the lines of text fonts
for a new plague has occurred with no treatment found to cure.
the heat of a blush from "i love you" absent from the screen,
the streets are a little too quiet for the comfort of elders.

do not be frightful for a generation
made from a future a past had conceived.
do not be hopeful for the undoing of the internet.
believe in amor fati, my dear, for this was inevitable.

Startle response! Wake--

When danger is ante
cipated,0h
--0n
lego-h-overedge aver
age
verbage re sighin'

clinging vines from debunked strings and
threads twisted wit'em.

Assume, if ye may or plea or will as
ye wont, pray means ask.

That's all.
Here, wit'afewmisstook aitches and spaces:
here is what we got,

a fresh secret story, un concerning anything you
believed you believed of/from/about idea ifify ie able ity ness

Reason requires response, Will Robinson.
Hidden persuaded, almost,
but lost...

Really,
what sacrifice bought
young John Carson to sublimnal
top 0'the mind status,
for the first two tv
generations?

Who do you trust? Carson's tv game
show debut, aimed at after school,
junior high, latch key,
wait staff on swing shift or graveyard,
the entire set of doin' nuttin'
'round Tea, fancy goin'

head t' head wit' Mickey Mouse Club,
on all the UHF stations out west.

It's 1957, who do you trust?
Time's man o'the year,
The Hungarian Freedom Fighter Idea,
the first stiffed
equal-value re
belicose cold war victim
of the famine for the grammar
of kindness and good sense
associated with DNA,
little green apples, puppy dogs,the
straight up command to love them that hate ye,
enemies and other words for folk
who would just as soon **** you
as hear one more word
about peace.

VOG,
words were scrambled,
christic crypt vacuum
tube
signal to noise ratio, caliber calculater pro
jection on to the rerewall o'yeardamnedbrain,

VOG Cancel
Bozo. This ad will **** for us. We can own the
'earts and minds of every grammar 'ater ever.

Since Babel, since Eber 'is 'ebrew ef-
fective, fervent...strainer at jots and tittlishit
self.

This ad makes mistook rules po'man laughable,
punch'n'judy'ishit:

Whom
do you trust, the grammarian so like so many
Deweyish proguess
edumacated teachers, you had this teacher,

squint, wrinkle nose, tight jibbs
frameless wire rimmed specs, a greying bun,

flower print dress wit' the weest bit o'lace,
lipless snide corrector's face. A trope archetype,
heroes re
bel
on demand, that was the plan. It
started with

AN AD. Who do you trust? Black and white,
Here's Johnny standing under the billboard,
y'know,
for the show, standin' like *******, shoulders
shrugged, palms up, elbo's bent

(contenintal suit, note the skinny tie, why?)
Who do you trust? Innocent grin, wordless
"Who knows?" or "knew"?

Whodjewtrust, in 1957? Cronkite, nicht wahr?
See the USA in the USA

in yo' Chevrolet, ole!
Yew should try Ritalin, for pep.

Take Serutan tonight, and sleep, safe and restful,
sleep, sleep sleep

VOG (Scourby) and, remember Serutan is Natures,
spelled backwards. Cue the choir,

safe and restful, sleep, sleep fade away

----
Where were you in 1962? Off t'college,
watchin' Johnny of Johnnies,

Johhny Quest, Johnny Lighting, Johnny Carson on

Tonight, there's more...
after the news, the dayroom in the dorm,

this is whence the quips in the quad were to be
sharpened wit'

fashion able ible tips, to fit the Esquire *** Hef
uniform dress code of mutual hidden

persuadeds.

Some souls were spared the spread of the
original tv virus, VHF, couldn't penetrate
the canyon...never subjected
to Howdy Doody,
our brains were spared the
complexes planted via the sit
com cowboy war subplot
phase of novus ordo
secluremishitistcal
experiments in
alientated
mind control.
We lived in the desert, in a place

a lot like Oscar's Oasis,
a wordless Korean Cartoon
set in a desert much like mine. On Netflix, 2019.

I did not watch the mandated ten thousand hours,
even when the deadline for party affiliation

mental ascent was ex
tended, circa 1985, pre-
tending to be a measure of de
fencing public universities from the
effect of rock and roll,

since about 1964

with folk like Dylan and Baez and Hallelujah
Jubilee and Jambalaya on d'Baya,
Herb's brass on the Baja, where all the girls
work it,
like 'otel Kali phornia, sticky,

sweet, like a taste of Honey. Mr.Bond,
meet Miss
Galore. OH GOD, in the car from the speaker
she heard the idea the meaning

in the name, oh god, she squeezed my hand.

Honor Blackman plays that role, she whispered.

Trust me. It's a good plan. We got these kids!

Mom and dad just won the war, had six kids in five years,

Levittown di'n't work out, couldn't go home,
mixed marriage, from the war.

Things hap, cajun catholic wannabe aerospace engineer spy guy,
lands in Alamagordo and environs,
Summer 1944.

Here we are, Equinox, loosing season, 2019,

so some prayers were for real.

Red somthin'r'other butterflies are riding a rare breeze
from the south to the north through my
makepeace home. My peace I give,
he said,
all that passed is unexplored, take all the time

you can imagine.

My wife knows the names of those butterflies,
that's part o'm'peace. Knowin' she cares to remember
such improbably beautiful things;

soul possessed in patience, is she.

footnote 1: Despite Ciba’s efforts to market Ritalin as a ‘pep pill’, the stimulant failed to become a best-seller.  But that was not the end of Ritalin’s story.  As early as the 1930s, psychiatrists working at a children’s psychiatric institution in Rhode Island, USA had noticed that stimulant drugs could have a positive effect on the academic performance and behaviour of troubled children.  Although few psychiatrists took notice of these observations at the time, by the late 1950s, escalating concern about the educational abilities of American children during the height of the Cold War encouraged Ciba to consider a new application for their drug: underachieving schoolchildren.  They received approval from the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market Ritalin to children in 1962 and, almost immediately, it became a best-selling drug (google it I didn't write the footnote pard but I forget where I got it.)

I Outdone the underdone
then I redone the overdone,
underlying was an underdog,
underachieving after overpaid,
overloads I underestimate,
now understanding the overkill,
overall I uncover,
being underhanded had the upper hand.


That's the complex actualized. I watch my back 24/7. The biggest enemy was myself but I keep my enemies closer than my friends. Leave no one behind unless they don't want to be saved. I was searching for some closure. Once I made peace with myself past and present, I was closer to my future...

Who am I?
Who are you?
Does anyone even know these days?
Am I my past, my present, or my future?
Are you a lover, a liar, or a suture?
We're ripping reality to shreds
and the chemicals in our heads
are a helluva rush, love,
wouldn't you say?
I've said a lot of words in my life
and they just keep coming,
a little too fast.
Shake that ***, let loose and have fun.
Ain't no reason for both of us to sit around ******,
underachieving low goals.
When you're ready for more,
you can ride my shoulders
and catch the stars.
We'll take them home
and bottle them in a see through jar.
I'm a little too far,
or maybe just a little too far gone,
but I've been watching from the sidelines.
I wonder if you can hear me cheering,
my fists in the air,
blaring my support.
I want nothing more than for you to be happy,
even if that means I have to disappear.
I'll pour the concrete myself while you drive to the shore.