finally aware

It is hard to say
what I've wasted the most
time, money, energy
It is hard to say
where it all went
and what I should do now
It is hard to say
how many distractions
have diverted a once powerful river
and choked it into stagnation
I am a dying stream,
polluted and putrefying
Even the most dehydrated, dying animal
should be wary of my waters
Is there an EPA
for a man's soul?
So many years I have ignored consequences
with boundless energy
I profaned the sacred
For so many years I bled
and did not feel it
Infection has gone to my brain
I am dying
and I am finally aware
There is no one to speak for me,
ladies and gentlemen of the jury
I take the blame
I take the punishment
my sins are evident
I've tuned my radio to the darkness
for so long
I've forgotten what a hymn sounds like.

the last singing synapses

All of these lines I've written
I've written in blood
How could you understand
all these years
I've been piling them up
hoping you would catch on
I am a time bomb without you
dreading those final ticks
They are lyrics fed to me
by the last singing synapses
as I drink my coffee
as I drive to work
in the shower
laying awake at night
during every menial task
moments in between
moments that pass so quickly
you hardly notice they're gone
I am hopeless, I know
I painstakingly carve these words
in my tenderest flesh
They come out so strange
so raw, so wrong
I wonder if you could ever
understand
Like bubbles from the depths
do they mean anything at all?

under that microscope

I am a window
to an empty street
I am the most anachronistic motherfucker
you will ever meet
A thousand disguises
cannot conceal me anymore
I am the warning
and the blood on your door
I am the sucker punch,
a dirty trick
and you make me feel
so fucking small
Is this payment
for a thousand wayward glances?
for so many nameless firestorms
that raged through my brain?
You don't know how it feels
until you go under that microscope
I am a man,
confident and sure
but at this moment
I've forgotten my name
A wall of eyes
can bring you to your knees
They ask so many silent questions
they cast aspersions,
they punish and pierce you
until you're out of sight
It is hard to fess up
until the tables have turned.

tending to my sin

I am the judge
I am the jury
and the fucking emcee
nothing in this circus
goes beyond me
I am the drug-addled soldier
with one too many sleepless nights
my chemicals are my salvation
and they've distilled into frustration
I stand alone and I breathe
a sigh of relief
like a tourist town in the Fall
when the rain comes down
and there's no place to be,
nothing to see
I am a forest regenerating,
waiting for you to leave
so I can come alive again
Where are you from,
what are you doing with your life
who fucking cares
we all end up the same
You can wrestle with God,
my friend, all you want
I'd rather not pick fights
I know I can't win
I'd rather not waste energy
tending to my wounds,
tending to my sin.

soft words and sharp blades

I have a confession
and I've run out of apologies
I hope you'll understand
There's no sense
in trying to make sense
of what I refuse to change
I am a man,
molded in clay
my eyes are roving
my heart races
my hands get hot
and my thoughts move with violence
like a storm
It is a heart attack
it is an eruption
I am covered in it
There is no going back
there is no backing down
There is only the impact
and I don't care to see your face
It is enough to know
I have broken us forever
it is enough to know
that violence begets violence
and I am soaked to the skin
in viscera, in hot orgasmic blood
I have cut to the bone
one too many times
My executioner is running late
she brings soft words and sharp blades.

a blender on high

The night has a violence
that is hard to comprehend
It has noises and ferments
with fears, with torments
Your eyes are bloodshot
more often than not
You feel an age much more
than your tender bones
You hold experiences
beyond your own words
You are a city contained in one
your complexity is obnoxious,
your depths unsoundable
You haven been given rare opportunities
and hardware to match
It is no wonder
your head churns like
a blender on high
but the question remains
Why hasn't that motor burned out?
what energizes you
keeps you viable
sane enough to function
With so much friction,
why isn't there fire?
You are blessed
and you are cursed
you can live in one
but both exist
You cannot run from it
your character is concrete
you are a contradiction set in stone
and you are your greatest foe
How many miles
do you have to run
before you realize
you will always be overtaken?

shadows that run

I'm not sure
what to say today
I think I ran out of words
or maybe they just ran away
What is the point
after everything has been said?
I'm still here
holding this bomb
I've had enough
but the situation's the same
I'm done trying to find
someone to blame
My thoughts are shadows
that run
my eyes are closed
but I can feel the sun
My situation is bleak
I'm running out of time
my body has become so weak
I know I can't keep up
I can see my life
dripping out of me
I have to keep it together
There is no point in dying here
no one would even find me
There's no reason to soldier on
everyone back home is gone
If I've got to keep trying
then I've got to keep dying.

this brutal, unusual path

It is self-inflicted
it is torture
There is no sense to it
other than the meaning you inject
There are no rules here,
just mirrors everywhere you look
and you cannot look away
There are no shackles
but you can hear screams
It is a sort of nourishment,
a sort of miserable therapy
The outward eyes don't know,
the inward eyes know all too well
No shadows can hide here
no closure exists
There is just the constant exercise
of your will against the wind
You are as happy as you care to be
and you have chosen
this brutal, unusual path
There will always be the questions
like there will always be funerals and weddings
There will always be those moments
that make you stop and think
Everyone knows
you are not pleased with yourself
but can you make peace with yourself?
It is like talking sense to the mountains
Living with you will always be
wars and rumors of wars.

the prettiest red dots

She is a denial
she is the end
her wordless mouth
has doomed me to this
She is my shaky crutch
and she knows nothing at all
If she did know
her silence would end
with violent rhetoric, hysterical laughter
A grown man
should not feel this way
I should remember that
I should write it down,
make a list
and fill it with all the things
I know I shouldn't do
But I know how hard
it is to cross things off
At least my emotional chaos
is organized
When I bleed,
I make the prettiest red dots
If I squeeze hard,
I can write your name.

your new direction

You are the fallen one,
corroding where you dropped
you are flaking paint and rust
leaking your chemicals
into the thirsty ground
You have been patient
did what you've been told
but they never gave you what you needed
You were abused and neglected
like so much outdated machinery
For so long
you were torn in so many directions
and now you are unmovable
fused to the dirt
Now, you wear the scars of vandals
and the graffiti of the bored
Your new direction is down
and slowly
as fast as you can off-gas and crumble
There is no leaving this town
you couldn't if you tried
your engine is full of sludge
and broken-down dreams
Your tank is full of powdery moths
and shaky spiders
You are beyond a flat tire
you are an angry eyesore of a machine
silently blaspheming all of nature
all of mankind
and every hateful bird.

at any other volume

You were driven into a corner,
the weight of their hate
pressed you to the floor
You asked for mercy
you pleaded with your tormentors
to just put you down
They gave you bread
you ate it and it was sweet in your mouth
it turned bitter in your stomach
it made you mean inside
They fed you hate
and it grew in you
it grew and it became this--
you can only function at full noise
you twitch and sputter
at any other volume
Destruction keeps you warm
arson makes you smile
bleeding is made better
when you've become lightheaded
and can finally think clearly
Their laughter dulls
your senses fade
you are nearing the end
like a dying, fallen star
you are so far from home
Will they see it when you die?
Will they see the night sky dim
imperceptibly?

words are weak

Are you jealous of her?
my secret lover is blank, expressionless
she knows only what I tell her
and never questions my judgment
As a whore, she lets me have my way
and never requests her turn
She is a bafflement
her selflessness disgusts me
I rage inside to destroy her
In a moment,
every bit of her could be gone
It's up to me
I have scarred her, marred her
with so many hateful words,
so many drunken and drowning scrawls
her skin is tattooed with my pictures
With her lips she draws me near,
with her heart she runs from me
I cannot capture her
words are weak
ideas are stillborn
My fingers blaspheme the fire in my brain
Intending to land a leviathan,
I have instead waded in with children
My eyes have blurred over
she whispers in my ear
I feel for her
She is the unattainable
I am the unlovable
our love is the perfect suicide.

slipped through the cracks

You've got to know
you're just a ghost now
I'm sorry I can't hold on forever
your hair and your smell
are about the only thing left
I wish I knew
if you ever got there,
wherever you wanted to be
I wish I knew
if your brother still knows my name
Do you still live in the shadow
of the glistening monoliths?
Do your eyes still widen
to engulf the world?
Maybe it is best
that you lay still there
like a photograph, unmolested
by time or other awkward hands
Maybe it is right
that we both took flight
to separate worlds
I have no ill will
and I left my pride behind
I hope you know that
I'm sorry for the pain
I'm sorry for what I lacked
and the desperate pieces of me
that slipped through the cracks.

shame like cellophane

I am the cause
I am the shame
I am broken down
I am to blame
Your tears flow so easily
my hands are covered in them
Your eyes conceal it
That's okay--
I can't look at them anyway
There is no measure of Job in me
there is no David or even Peter
God's grace can't reach me here
I am broken free
and into what?
I have risen in the morning mist
and have melted in the sun
I have mere moments
so here it is--
I wish I hadn't caused you this pain
I hope you see my frame
and its terrible weakness
All I wanted was to make you smile
all I need is to see your brilliant eyes
free of care again
free of the care
I brought to them
free like the moon and the clouds in the sky
free, and me so far away
suffocating in my world of shame.

"look at your little monster"

Mother,
sometimes I wish you knew
Father,
sometimes I think of you
and all the times we never had
I tried to be a big man
I tried to wash my hands
of the world's misery
You can't see me here
but maybe you can imagine
Maybe you can feel what I've become
Me,
laying awake at night with the torments
dragging those shadows into the morning
working like the worst of criminals
and finding a failed wreck at the end
Me,
trying to drown my shame
and doing it all again
I'm sorry I broke so many rules
I ran away
that was the wrong thing to do
I am punished every day
in more ways than you can imagine
I am shattered like an animal on the highway
like a dream it has come to me
You hurt the ones you love
with the most efficient and brutal blows
I am an assassin
covered in so much blood.