Words Don’t Form

I stare at the lines and they stare back at me
Both of us blank–so opaque and empty
It seems to me I should have something to say
But the words don’t form

Trapped in my head–such a cognitive mess
So many things not worth saying, I guess
It seems to me I can’t be silent again
But the words don’t form

Almost inspired but not quite enough
I tell myself ‘write about heartache or love’
All of these feelings should move me to speak
But the words don’t form

Maybe it’s apathy building inside
Maybe it’s fear of the things I might write
Maybe I’m just feeling distant tonight
But the words don’t form

Sometimes to write is like capturing air
Translating hearts into things we can share
Surely I should have a sentence or two
But the words don’t form

Here I remain without passion or drive
Fumbling for some way to prove I’m alive
Wishing that I could express something right
But the words don’t form

Tremors

Writhing as if I have something inside of me
Twisting my stomach and squeezing my heart
Gasping as if there is not enough air to breathe
What is this agony?
Is there no sympathy?

Crumpled and folded like drawings you wouldn’t keep
Wracked by these tremors infecting my limbs
Clinched in a fist like my fingers are weaponry
What is this agony?
Is there no sympathy?

I know that you will see much more composure
When this is over; if this is over
I know that we can be civil and sober
Once we recover; if we recover
Maybe the antidote lies undiscovered
Under these tremors; under these covers
Maybe in time we will find it together
But for tonight I am destined to suffer

The Band Played On

Oh God, we’re sinking slowly
Cold and lonely
This is a tragedy

These icy depths below me
Rising slowly
Witness calamity

Oh God, where are you now
We will drown and
What will they say of you?

The lights are going out
All around me
What are we meant to do?

And the band played on
A melody
A sad sad song
Hear the horns and strings
And the whole world crashed
Down on me
While the band played on
Through the final scene

Oh God, we die so soon we
Don’t have time to
Say our last goodbyes

This gaping wound that makes us
Doomed before we
Ever close our eyes

Oh God, I wanted this I
Don’t have strength to
Point the blame at you

But as we’re going down these
Fates appear so
Cruel and undue

And the band played on
A melody
A last surrender
To the deep
While the whole world crashed
Down on me
But the band played on
And so did we

His Fault

See the man in the corner
With a sad sort of shape
Keeping hands in his pockets
Like he’s keeping them safe

See the man in the corner
With the monochrome eyes
Little shadows beneath them
From the things on his mind

I know what you’ve heard
But stories get told
He’s not quite the person
That I used to know
They say that he’s guilty
But I know he’s not
He’s the man in the corner
And it isn’t his fault

See the man in the corner
Playing hide-and-go-seek
But the world never found him
Like they never found me

See the man in the corner
Staring out at the room
Like he sees what is not there
Like he’s looking for you

I know what you’ve heard
But stories get told
He’s not quite the person
That I used to know
They say that he’s guilty
But I know he’s not
He’s the man in my mirror
And it isn’t his fault

Zero Visibility

The sky cried “mutiny”
The blue jumped ship
Into a sea of white
And now it covers me
Like waves of pale
Awash across the light

The sun is drowning in
A tidal wave
Of color-vacant hues
The waters overhead
Have swallowed up
The last and best of blue

And we are left here
In zero visibility
A quiet rest where
The atmosphere collapsed
I must confess: here
In zero visibility
I’m better dressed for
My disappearing act

Beneath the vapor
In zero visibility
The clouds have anchored
The buildings fade to shapes
I want to stay here
In zero visibility
To hide away here
In blankets of the grey

Everything Is Tainted

When your eyes are scratched
By objects unforgiving
When your vision warps
The colors you perceive
Everything is tainted

When your hands are marked
By scars that steal the feeling
When your fingers reach
For things you cannot find
Everything is tainted

When your dreams are gripped
By demons uninvited
When your sleep is torn
In pieces you can’t mend
Everything is tainted

When your heart is broke
By bitter disappointment
When a void replaces
Things you once believed
Everything is tainted

Fashion And Fatalities

You wear your skin convincingly
As if it’s where you want to be
But I can see, oh, I can see
And nothing here is fooling me

You wear your smile so finely peeled
As if it’s how you really feel
But I can see, oh, I can see
And nothing here is fooling me

You wear that dress so confident
As to impress with elegance
But I can see uncertainty
And nothing here is fooling me

You wear your Jewelry like a charm
As if it keeps you safe and warm
But I can see you’re disbelief
And nothing here is fooling me

I don’t intend to condescend
As if I don’t know how you feel
I can see, oh, I can see
Because you look a lot like me

I wear my heart out on my sleeve
As if that’s where it’s meant to be
And we can leave, oh, we can leave
Because none of them are fooling me

Bland

Nothing tastes as something should
I wish to have no drink or food
For nothing seems to fill my need
And nothing suits me half as good
Or satisfies me quite as well
As being with someone I love
So nothing sounds like something good
Though everything seems like it should
The only cause that I conclude
Could cause me not to wish for food
Is that I’m hungry this is true
But maybe it’s from missing you
And nothing else has quite the taste
To fill the hunger or replace
The smiles that you provided me
Or comfort felt in your embrace
Nothing tastes as something can
When all is well and right again
Perhaps the mind is meant to sense
A better flavor with a friend
So nothing tastes like something should
For nothing could be quite as good
As being with someone you love
And suddenly I wish I could

Emerging (a restless sleep)

Whispers crawl under my skin
In twisting rivets driven deep
Beneath the softened flesh within
A rasping catch of breath and wind

Voices creep behind my eyes
With words of faded agony
Enshrouded spirits of the night
Entombed in tongue of ardent flight

Echoes dance around my head
With vague and unrequited hums
In quivers faint of lovers dead
They haunt the covers of my bed

Every dawn as I emerge
Reluctantly they break their cry
And silence for a time their urge
To wait for me ’til I return

Oh So Still

The teeth are out tonight
Just be motionless and quiet
The eyes are on the prowl
Making fearful sorts of sounds

But I learned early life is scary
Everything out to get me
Don’t disturb the silence
And stay oh so still

I learned early no one knows me
Everyone is cold and lonely
Don’t disturb the balance
Just stay oh so still

The mob is out tonight
Just be motionless and quiet
With torches held as swords
It’s a vicious little world

I learned early life is scary
There are secrets you should bury
Don’t leave any footprints
And be oh so still

I learned early life is scary
This disguise is necessary
Never let them see you
And be oh so still

But maybe just maybe
If I don’t move a muscle
The eyes will not see me
The teeth will not bite

And maybe just maybe
If nothing can find me
My silence will save me
And I will survive

Tragedy Is In Love With Me

Tragedy is in love with me
And I’m in love with her
Can you see what she’s done to me

Tragedy is my bestest friend
I take her everywhere
We can be what we want to be

Tragedy is in love with me
And she can be so sweet
Everything is a fantasy

Tragedy is my nearest kin
I feel her in my blood
We can be what we want to be

Tragedy is in love with me
She likes to hold my hand
We make up when we disagree

Tragedy is my mirror mask
She always understands
We can be what we want to be

Tragedy is in love with me
She never wants to leave
Every evening she follows me

Tragedy is my better half
She helps my heart believe
We can be what we want to be

Translucent

Do you see me
Am I here
I must be crazy
But I don’t feel like I exist

Do you see me
Anywhere
I must be fading
Why is my face so colorless

In the mirror
Peering back
I must be dreaming
There’s a stranger in my skin

It looks human
Still intact
But I feel hollow
Like a fragment of the wind

I can see right through my tenuous disguise
This lack of substance and this faded enterprise
Maybe now in form I start to realize
I am translucent and I hope they see the light
Through me

Enclosure

Interred in juggernaut walls
Rifted as it were from form well fit
By cause or catastrophe untold
Folded for wilting
Petals lain in tired heaps about this enclosure
Swept up in figure crumpled slumped and sunken in efforts spent
To rend mortar from brick to crack sick structured severance
Laced in loosely laid arguments
Spun for movements yet untaken
In desperation resolve forsaken
Trapped
But not apparent
These exits hid for time when waking reason sheds inhibition
When sense and sensitivity are molded first for what cannot be seen
Which here now resides
Bent in shadow
Drawn for eyes of brighter respect
Whose lenses cleansed again repent the disbelief in trade for what is made
Gentle fingers to trace the contour of this devil’s grave
In truth to discover the clever architect of such cruel monuments
Could not a tyrant be
If indeed as tyrants go a hand external this would mean
Entombed in grave remorse or faded course
For drunken charting in love’s throes
A figure fair and sovereign did fashion such a cavern
If not by reason
Then by lack of will to look beyond a cold unforgiving frame
To name an enemy unseen a thing of dreams or even more a ghost
But ghosts do not here dwell
And ghosts
Though present nonetheless
Do not the dwelling of the living form
Nor lay the bricks
A holding pen
If that is what it is that you are in
May rise but ‘neath the guide of only one
The one in which resides this mortar
This brick
This mob of walls from which is not a certain door
And so laid
Crumpled on the floor
A figure bathed in cascaded darkness all it’s own
To wrap in rags from sorrow sewn
A thing of beauty
A thing of bright elements infused
Of such a race that angels envy for their loves
Disfigured in despair by air oppressed and rent of rest
And yet…
Free
If by choosing she will be
Uncluttered by restraint to paint a stroke of brilliant light
Across a night in need of such
For out the darkness
Blushes paths untaken
Words unspoken
Exits formed of threads being woven by hands which built
Perhaps unknowing
This dim and dreamless dark enclosure
To unravel walls well fabricated
But not from necessity here created
A farce are they
By motion shattered with ease
Poor creature you are not caged
You are not clipped as birds with wings
You are not held within these
As always you are liberated
And have been since when first created
Birthed unclothed and unashamed
Untold untrained and untamed
To build grander things than tombs in which to cower from a world of tombs
A world of rooms
A world of flowers wilted in walls built
By hands not meant for such doom
By eyes fused with colors unreflected without others
Arise to face these juggernaut walls
And find them weak
Made to fall
Spend those finely sculpted hands on other tasks of greater chance and higher call
Lit from a fist thrown firm beneath the tired chest of these apparitions
Move and live and love
And in so doing be the destroyer
Of your saddened heart’s enclosure

24,901

Twenty four thousand miles
The circle of this sphere
Surely somewhere there’s a place for me

Twenty four thousand miles
And anywhere but here
I don’t know where I would rather be

But I would like to belong
And I would like to be home

Twenty four thousand miles
Across this speck of dust
Floating in an endless open space

Twenty four thousand miles
The distance between us
I want to set the galaxies ablaze

And I just want to belong
And I just want to be home

I want to tear apart the sky
Rip the colors from the leaves
Burn the atmosphere to static

If we could light it all on fire
Maybe then I could believe
We could rise up from the ashes

I can’t feel anything at all
But I feel nothing very well
Someone wake me when it’s over

I’ll either choose to sleep it off
Or I will blow us all to hell
I guess I’ll go back to the covers

But I just want to belong
And I just want to be home

If Skin Is A Cell

If skin is a cell
Then bodies are prisons
If mind is a hell
Then nightmares are demons
If life is a stage
Then death is our curtains
If love is a game
Then rules are uncertain
If eyes are a frame
Then windows are tinted
If time is a father
Then mine is abusive
If skin is a cell
Then I need pardon
If love never fails
Then this is my bargain

Tear Myself Apart

Can you hear the threads explode
As I rip a hole through this open wound
I tried to heal but it won’t stay closed
And the stitches snap like a heart attack

When I tear myself apart
To expose my beating heart
For a lost and lonely world
Let the pain become my art
With the blood my ink to write
As I tear myself apart

Every sinew is woven wrong
Let me shred this tissue and break these bones
Call me human but I’m so much more
You can burn my skin but I’m deep within

And I tear myself apart
To expose this broken heart
For a lost and lonely girl
Let the pain become my art
We will paint our love in blood
As we tear ourselves apart

Reach your hand down farther and feel
There is passion burning there still
From this gash carved here in my chest
Till they dress me and lay me to rest

I will tear myself apart
Take the last of my beating heart
It’s a black and broken world
But the pain is my purest art
And I love you whatever the cost
I would tear myself apart

Parasite

Cocooned within beneath the skin
With tentacles like vices closing
Ever tighter underneath
They tear at me until exposing

How I suffer
Though I try to exercise these demons
I thought I had the strength to face this in your absence

How I suffer
Though I try injecting all of these reasons
But I’m host to all the faceless empty caverns

Wake up screaming am I dreaming
I think it’s eating me alive on the inside
You can’t see it on the surface
But I think it’s eating me alive on the inside

Oh God it’s the parasite
I think I’ve given it a name
Oh God please be here tonight
Before I drive myself insane
We all are an entity
I cannot separate
These open wounds brought the parasite
I cannot amputate

I think it’s eating me alive on the inside
I only want to see your eyes for a while
I think it’s eating me alive on the inside
Theres no resistance for the vacancy you left

Happy Face

I think I need time or space
Maybe just a bit of both
To bring back a smiling face
Tonight it’s out on loan
Not that I’m all that sad
I think it’s the aftermath
Of crying too hard too much
And they don’t make pills for that

The pillows I sleep with know
Oh when it rains it pours
I turned all my insides out
There’s nothing to say anymore
But I’ll get along just fine
And soon I will find a place
To translate these tears of mine
And put on a happy face

Trouble has come and gone
Maybe it hangs around
I don’t feel like checking tonight
It’s late and I need to lay down
The world is an awkward place
For being a sensitive type
There’s too many ways to fall
And not enough help to rise

But I’ve got a drink beside
The bed stand where I will sleep
The headache will fade by then
Along with the rest of me
I do what I can to believe
The choices we make will count
For something beyond these dreams
It’s all worth the cost for now

It could be worse I suppose
And that’s what I tell myself
We have to keep feeding our hope
We have to keep up our health
When all of these tragic times
Have turned into history
I’ll look back and say it’s alright
It’s still worth it all to me

Giving Blood

Bleed me
Take what you need and
Release me
Make these incisions
So deep we
Feel it inside
when they cut
This is the greatest divide

Bleed me
Drunk from the pain and still
Reeling
I’d give the last drop to
Free you
Please don’t be scared
You can have it all
Promise I will be prepared

Wake up strapped to the table
I will keep pumping as long as I can
You can have all of this life I am able
To give you and then I will give it again

Bleed me
Take my inside out
And see me
I will not hide when
You need me
Here I will stay
Give what it takes
Till they take me away