pretenders (bad religion)

I give to you, you take from me
We live in perfect harmony
But I know you can't give me what I need
With subtle care and rosey hues
We duke it out, we change our views
We hold so dear our unanimity

Oh
We are just pretenders
We are just pretenders, lost in this charade
We are just pretenders, characters on stage
We are just pretenders, trying to break free
We are just pretenders, hiding so no one sees

We try to find our peace of mind
Just a vestige we left behind
But ignorance takes far less energy
And if you please, I'll look to you
Because I need somebody who
forgives me for my harsh reality

Oh, but
We are just pretenders
We are just pretenders, we're trying to break free
We are just pretenders, we'll lose them easily
We are just pretenders, trying to break free
We are just pretenders, hiding so no one sees

You standing there
playing with your hair
Trying to ignore
but peeking in the mirror
Re-living the scenes
from books and magazines
Craving the life
you live in your dreams
And I'm standing here
Thinking that it's queer
But fearing that I am the same
You ask me how I feel
It's so damn surreal
I think it's finally time we ended this game
'cause we are just pretenders
We are just pretenders, lost in this charade
We are just pretenders . . .

killing time (a love song)

You've got my gun
in your mouth
I'm going to make this
as messy as possible
but you won't know
you'll be nothing
but shrapnel, bloody confetti
Your eyes are leaking
please, please, please
don't kill me
I can't understand a word you're saying
(maybe it's the gun in your mouth)
anyway
I've heard enough
It's time to take you
out of circulation
I've got Cain's blood
flowing through my veins
you've got nothing but pleas
nothing but noise
It's time to dance
time to die
Little one
you tried to be so big
now we see what you are
you're just a fallen star
what a pitiful end for you
I wish we could always
be like this
It's so rare that we see
eye to eye
so rare that we exist
on the same level
I have to keep you like this
that's why it has to end this way
you will always be groveling, begging
and I won't let you go
My love for you is eternal
you can never change
it's hard to explain
even harder to swallow
what's coming down your throat
The end is a thunder crack
hot as lightning
mean as hell
I feel your love all around me
dripping from the walls
you smell like gunpowder
you taste so raw
you ring in my ears
We will always share this moment
so intimate, so real, so beautiful.

plan x

It wouldn't take much--
when I close my eyes
it's easy to imagine
I wouldn't leave that much behind
if I were to disappear
thousands of pages just like this
thousands of dollars of debt
thousands of tears
and not much else
I want desperately to disappear
and I have help--
a drug that comes
looking for me
follows me home
calls my name
a co-conspirator in the quest
to extinguish myself
I've tried for so many years
to speed up this process
Why don't I just go
for the violent, bloody end?
after all
we all appreciate a strong ending
not this whimper
not this kicking at the pricks
not this tearful dirge
this slow procession
into the welcoming night

Maybe things won't always be this way
maybe there is a cure
for this pain
maybe someday I'll wake up
and finally know the answer

Sitting in my car
on the edge of the parking lot
sometimes I imagine
never going back--
leaving, right then and there
but
of course
everyone knows
I checked out years ago
One by one,
they've tried to draw me in
one by one,
I've disappointed them
sorry girls, I know the score
you're on plan A
I'm on plan X
You will build your kingdoms
I will be here
still drinking these bitter tears
I finger these thoughts
and file them away
There is hope
I will wait for her
and those short and sweet moments
before I have to do it all again.

highway nebraska

I'm
too tired to care
too tired to explain this shit
too tired to finish
my own sentences
too tired to carry on
too tired for more excuses
Wake me up
when we get there
there's nothing to see here
Endless miles, endless blinking
at open road
nothing catches the eye
Too fucking tired
for this bullshit
too fucking tired
of exit signs to nowhere
exit signs to the same homes
full of the same people
living the same dramas
mile after fucking mile
My car can't go fast enough
to kill the dull ache in my head
What a trip
what an end
this is where I never
want to come back again.

the double helix

Your alien body goes well
with these alien hands
I don't know what's come over me
but it feels like
the end of the world
running through my veins
I hear myself speaking
but I don't know what I'm saying
I feel you trembling
and I want to put you
out of your misery
I pity you--
you got too close
and now you've fallen
into me, into a dark pit
I should have warned you
but I held my tongue
That aggravates you, doesn't it?
It makes you want to either
destroy me or claw your way inside me
to find the answers
Why do you want my abuse?
You could be much better off
all you have to do is walk away
My lust for you is so simple, so base
to break us apart
would be like unraveling the double helix
You know I will follow you
to slake my thirst from your tender flesh
You can stand up to anyone, anything
but you can't say no
to the murder on my breath
to the apocalypse in my eyes.

ink

To Mom,

Why I want a tattoo:

*Because Random Acts of Violence is so
much cooler than Six Pack of Hate.
*Because people respect it when you
don't give a fuck what people think.
*Mine will be special, not some clip art.
*Everyone will know that I'm hardcore.
*It's not tribal or barbed-wire inspired.
*It is an icebreaker, after random sex.
*Guys will respect it as much as the ladies.
*It is two parts Morrisey to three parts
Snapcase.
*Girls won't know what the fuck I'm talking
about when I explain it, but the end result
will always be more pussy.
*I will be endlessly more photogenic and
streetwise.
*Positive ID for my pretty corpse.
*It goes so well with my two-day beard.
*We all need something permanent
(okay, occasional touch-ups).
*I designed this shit myself because I'm
deep and I have to express myself.
*The artist is giving me a price-break.
*I was joking when I said I wanted a tattoo
of a butt--on my butt.
*Grandma thought it would be cool.
*Grandma also likes PBR.
*Unlike the last CD I bought, I will never
regret it.
*Jesus has tattoos! Not that Jesus. He also
helps me fix my truck and afterward we
talk about the drugs we used to do and the
girls we used to know.
*It's a reminder of something I need to be
reminded of. It's hard to run away from.
*It's a rite of passage for my pansy, white,
suburban ass.
*Did I mention the "I heart Mom"?
*It's a gateway drug--on to the piercings.
*I should be able to snare the unhealthy-looking
girls in the health food aisle. You know, the
ones with the unnatural shades of hair color
and obvious eating disorders.
*I sold my subwoofers to get it with color.
*I cover myself with an inky armor so I can
live in a painful world.

your curious chemicals

It feels like a multitude of counselors
endlessly chattering away in my skull
Is that a clever way of saying
I can't control my thoughts anymore?
I have to try
because no one else is going to
Each day I run the gamut from
radiating hate to suicidal fantasies
But under your watchful gaze
all the noise stops
You've become my most prescribed drug
Is that flattering
or frightening?
Everyone knows about my odd obsessions
they're carved in bathroom stalls
they are petty crimes
compared to the destruction
I want to do to you
I've been reading your dirty books
been taking in your dirty looks
one by one
boiling them down
mixing in feeble ego and paranoia
in dangerous proportions
and stabbing you into my veins

I tell myself I'm strong
I can stand alone
without your faithful injections
but the noise, the chattering
convince me otherwise
Your voice quiets the riot
in my sick blood
I know
you used to think
I had all the answers
You used to hold me
and my famously cocksure ways
in such high esteem
I've lived simply
never needed much
when I was cut
I never feared the blood
Now
I have panic down to a science
Now
when I come up for air
all I want to see is your face
It's become necessary
like I've got a taste for your blood
Your body is the question
mine is the answer
every cell in my body is screaming
every neuron is salivating
every line that goes through
my dull brain
reads the same
It is a bottomless craving
for your curious chemicals.

leaving Hot Springs

Remember the backseat
of that shitty Chevette?
your brothers at the helm
cruising, wandering
the girls, the banter
Slippery When Wet
courtesy of custom speakers
I had no idea
the dreams, the thoughts
that would be drilled into me
How many girls that I see now
were conceived to those songs?
Don't get me wrong
Livin' on a Prayer still has a special place
in my rock and roll heart
but it got shoved to the quaint department
Very Proud of Ya
Stranger than Fiction, Samiam's Clumsy
they all did their part
to bury the old albums
We all choose our songs
and mine are sad and angry
That doesn't take away the time
staring out backseat windows
trying to break the code
that older boys and girls speak
Outside Evans Plunge
is that when I first felt
the vagabond curse
the wildness that always returns?
Here I am today
so pitifully removed
hoping for a taste
of that overworked stereo
sweet night air
chlorine and bubble gum

Twenty years it took me
to go back there
and drink that water
breathe that sterilized air
What an odd revelation
to find myself so unfit
unable to relate
You know those places haven't changed
the town still smells the same
as when I dug for fossils after school
The same angry sun
still bakes the ground
but my eyes can't focus anymore

Mourn if you must
it was taken from you, after all
No one ever loved this place more than you
Funny
how a girl robbed you of this
Fitting
I suppose
but the story lays still
in the red mud that cakes your feet
down by Fall River
where the dragonflies still couple
where your boyhood tumbles away from you
in that Chautauqua water.