On the Breakwater The floodlights across the docks are switching on And the breeze that blows in from the pacific is going strong The city lights are far away I can turn and the worlds gone I'm caught in a strange current I'm walking until dawn My watch has read 2am for five days Hasn’t made a fucking difference if I'm asleep or awake I’m caught in a glass bowl I’m struggling to escape So I pace these empty hours like I might actually find the way I feel my shoulders bend beneath the cloudless sky’s weight As I step shuffling forward dragged by tendons in my legs There’s fatigue I can’t get rid of on the cusp of dream’s haze And the self I’m holding onto slowly starts to drift away It’s the silent screaming halogens burning in traffic lights It's the alcohol fevers and purges that warm the night It’s the new apartment glow choking stars in slow fights It’s my restless sense struggling to set my balance right. I’ve become fully ambivalent the scenery is all the same Sleep on a friend’s couch though at home a bed’s made Completely fucking empty nothing running through my veins Except the embers in my head that used to burn at full flame I’m the self effacer, not sure where to draw the line Smothered by the flow of the city's lives over mine Always fucking anxious not sure how to pass the time As the universe collapses on the base of my spine So I walk Pulled by the empty space beneath my chest I feel a tug with every step But the distance never closes, don’t know where I’m going Still so far from home And I could fall into the sky if I don’t hold on to the pain and desperation Set me moving through the night The shallow sleep leaves bruises on my eyes They're the long-forgotten product of my ever-fickle mind I went to diagnose and there was nothing there to find Just the shame that’s always chased me when I know I’ve told a lie The passing cars tear at the wind down the road And disappear into the concrete teeth as they unfold The streetlights mark the way like yellow stepping stones And they carve a tunnel through the night deep into the unknown The sidewalks lead to corners. The doors are always closed. I’ve been through every pocket hidden from the city’s glow Some are far away and you can sit and drink alone But the rest are buried beneath walls where sound and liquor flow The ocean calls me to it when there’s nowhere left to be It’s the closest place to nowhere so it sets part of me free Black waves roll on forever about as far as I can see But I’m still tethered to myself so this is not a place for me And I walk

Man Down The Road If I work more than six days My whole mind begins to change Every pattern just gets stuck Dull as an infected cut Every hour forms a chain Buying tomorrows with todays And if one goes off the edge Borrow your way closer to death There’s a man lives down the road And he hardly leaves his home After work if you’re that way A light comes through the window pane It’s his television’s glow A schizophrenic puppet show And if you walk by every day I guarantee you’ll see no change I've got some big ambitions Man I’ve got places to go Got a future waiting for me Got my hands around its throat I've got some big things to balance For my mind and soul and health But it doesn’t really matter because they’re owned by someone else I’m a parasitic colony A know extortionist If the world was clean and perfect I would just cease to exist I’m going to fight my way through college On the day I graduate I will buy back all the years I lost And set the record straight.

Burdensome I know I show too much I say what you don’t want to hear I’m frantic and I’m desperate I can’t help but make that clear I flunk out when I test myself, it damages my fucking health You’d think if I was faking maybe one day I just might get well Never going to happen, shame dogs my every action I get lost and then I spin my wheels with no traction I’m off the deep end and I’m bailing in dramatic fashion Got no damn excuse I don’t know why you’re even asking Wish I’d promise, know you’d want to hear that I’m ok I waste everyone's time, only calling to complain I want to mean something but all I do is share my pain I know you’ve got my back and man it kills me that I haven’t changed I’m still hardly eating, not sleeping, just cutting losses Life is chaotic, it’s packed away in cardboard boxes I’m moving every month, three houses two jobs Just kind of awkwardly surviving going with the odds You’ve got to rid yourself of everything burdensome I know you’ve heard it all a hundred times Close the curtains I’m full of stale apologies All my friends who place their faith in me are hearing about me Free-falling awkwardly I’m relapsing on that same pain constantly So there’s no fucking reason that they should even be bothering Don’t know what I’m even worth Must have had something to offer but it’s gone and I’ve slowly gotten worse One by one they’ll finally see that they should throw me to the curb But I’d keep trying forever if I’d just once keep my word Feel like a disappointment, should have done more Looks like I’m falling in the traps I’ve often seen before I don’t respect myself. I don’t believe I’ve tried I don’t succeed or fail, just live until I die Can't make it on my own There’s nowhere that I fit Wish I could pay you back Got nothing left to give What’s broken can’t be fixed I’ll never give my word Because I’ll never keep it and promising just makes it all worse It’s not a secret how I’m doing man, I’m crashing hard Ain’t even touched the damn piano, barely ever write at all It’s not a fucking drama we ain’t watching how the mighty fall Just a pathetic bastard languish like he should have all along There’s lots of things I would have done but had to call them off I’ll make a record once I graduate that’s a long shot I’ll be happy once I’m done, that’s a nice thought I’m hoping that I get there at this point it’s just too close to call Do you think if I didn’t have these moods you’d see me fly? Like everyone expected spread my wings and take the sky? I’m wasting all your efforts, I’m failing all my trials Because I’m letting down the people who only want to see me smile If there was anything I wanted to repair myself I’ve already fucking got it so what else could even help? I had friends when alone, I was picked up when I fell It should have made a difference but I really just can’t tell

Call Me Out I was sneaking past the churchgoers as they sang And I’d already had a couple before you rang I’m setting up to go out with a bang And it’ll hurt I hope somebody stops me first I was hiding in a crowd as is my way People only listen when you’ve got nothing to say So I try to oblige them I’m keen to entertain But it don’t feel right So I end up going quiet When we all talk at once I just get bored So I tilt my glass and slide right out the door And while I’m walking around the yard I might have a couple more As the wind picks up And my fingers go numb I rattle like a stone in an empty tin And I’m hollow but I might be caving in Because no matter how I tell it it still seems that I can’t win Might just be me In fact I’m sure I’m my worst enemy So call me out Call me out tonight It’s hard when no one’s looking to pretend that I’m alright I’ll settle for your pity If it means that you care So call me out and you know you’ll see me there Some nights I’m a sandbag That’s holding back a flood Other nights I’m wasted but I write it off as luck Tonight I’m as innocuous as the poison in my blood And I could be gone It wouldn’t have to last this long I really only want to get away I wish liquor did the things that people say But It’s just another culprit in a cycle of self blame And I don’t care So if you want you can meet me there I’ve got a way to act out these disasters And it might be real but I play it up for the cameras Because I’m a mess and it hurts that it doesn’t matter In the long run To you or me or anyone

Break Don’t Bend Hot water in the sink Oil on my hands Sun is down, sky is dark nothing else planned Thoughts leave a mark like a red hot brand And it’s all I can remember once the flame has been fanned Practice makes perfect Hills and roads Biking in silence on a cold ride home Shoes off in the hall, I’m glad to be alone And then my blood runs cold What’s another twelve months if I can’t change this Abandon all dignity, shift and resist If I can’t write, I’m nothing, just two sore wrists Living for the dreams on a fucking short list Now I did my best but the song is not there Bent over loose leaf, sit and stare Thoughts drown out thoughts Fist full of hair That’s another hope gone can’t see why I care I did the same thing again No love, lifeless, paper and pens Every nerve screams at me “break don’t bend” But I lie back down just wait for this to end I’m a no-sleep, retail, trainwreck I know you’ve got it worse I won’t complain yet Put it in the song playing on the tape deck And shit will probably kill me before anyone is impressed Because I don’t speak for anyone I hate leaving the house Just staring at my feet as I’m wandering about If I know a street is crowded then I pick another route Because I’m just so fucking lonely I’m afraid I might reach out See I’m sick of being real when it’s real to turn away Show my fucking soul as your interest fades “I live for my music” that’s just what I say When I’m down but I don’t want the truth to escape Odd hours working Turned so shy Streets full of strangers Downcast eyes Lying in bed Couldn’t sleep if I tried Breakfast at eleven, heavy drapes for the light Through the month of December I would drink until I fell And the walls of my room closed in like a cell Voice far away like the bottom of a well And every fucking song put me through hell Since nothing ever matters if it never sees the light Which is why I want to scream while I’m walking through the night That all of this is real, even if I lose the fight And I’ll get it out if it’s the last thing that I write

At a Distance I started my life about a year too late So when they counted up the tally, man I didn’t even place Sometimes I get letters just to turn me away They say: “thanks but we just don’t need you” So I hide myself away with my books and my pens I write a lot of stories but I don’t see them through to the end And all the empty pages talk much louder than the rest They say: “thanks but we just don’t need you” I heard the sound coming off of the porcelain walls as the band began to play I spat my heart out in a sink in a bar across the bridge And I locked my last words away I saw the crowd walking off as they talked each other up And I sank beneath the sky I haven’t spoken to a soul but I’m not ready to go home Man I wish I could explain why You either catch a big break or play for your own sake I couldn’t make it work I had to find another way Now I’m left with all these things that I wish I could say Along with all the hollow things I’ve been through So I could hide in this house until my body finally dies With these same stale feelings that I could never speak or hide There was no one who could use just what I carried inside They all say: “thanks but we just don’t need you” So I’ll sink into the ground And I’m moving out of town It just takes some time For every branch to die

Calculated Sacrifice Fear is deep in the steel bones of the concrete Penetrates the long streets Everywhere I look are gulls, wheeling in the sky But their bodies are rotting and they don’t fall when they die I’ve seen it all in a flash The tar-fired sins of the past A shattered image sitting in the glass And I’m trapped once the scaffolding drops I’ll break once I hit the bottom if it’s real or not Sad dreaming when I’m sick I laugh Hard and sharp like a metal chassis ripped in half Arm necrotizing still in its cast The final fever burned through the fuel too fast Pinned beneath the weight of tomorrow But I was never placed only told to follow So I was never real, just a moment of sorrow So I was never here, just some time that was borrowed It’s not a truth that I want to believe But the doors that I was offered wouldn’t set me free So until the hazy autumn fall of the last leaf I will never sleep, never be at peace I saw myself standing in the ocean as it boiled Eyes dead and glassy staring out across the roil He betrayed the dream to which I had remained loyal I betrayed our dignity standing above the soil like I’m the fury in a drum of black gold The hunger in a crowd as the winter grows cold The long forgotten prodigy hidden in the folds Of everything I’ve hated in myself, maybe more I don’t care what pride is at stake A pair of pliers and a razor get a hold the blades Nothing left to salvage, nothing left to save Nothing else to sharpen if I want to stay the same White plaster walls scanned again and again Looks like I’ve gone to pieces I am proud and I’m vain Bleeding my catharsis with an anger that I feign Tendons wrecked in my arms, pills for the pain The ships are all leaving the docks It all felt so real but the water went and carried them off Can you validate and nurse such a loss? Or do you simply shed it with the slag and the dross? Bloody victory or confidence or faith Were not meant to compare against the sweetness of escape So until my very essence finds another way to change I will always slide, I will never break I saw myself sleeping he was cold and far away Pressed beneath the weight of my conclusions where he lay He betrayed my body trying to hold up the weight I betray myself with a promise I won’t say like Jagged pieces there is nothing to collect Blank glass shards nothing for you to reject Broken and invincible, a method to perfect I am nobody. I am nothing. I am worthy of respect Molded by a pressure that could never take me down Guided by an ending that I sought but never found Manifesting all of it in rhythm and in sound But you won’t find me here, you won’t see that I’m around It was calculated sacrifice to keep myself intact But I can’t love the emptiness or get a fire to catch Everything I want to write I find by looking back To when I’d play on my guitar until my fingertips would crack Burning through myself until there’s nothing left to share I’ve forgotten who I was maybe happy maybe scared But I know that he was real because I wrote it down somewhere Just a body and a thought and a paper and a chair

The Killer One million screens are now showing the face Of the man who took thirty you lives to this day He stole them and broke them the reporters say He’s both free and caged but in all the wrong ways The one who escaped is now taking the stand Two suits prop him up with his arms in their hands His eyes are cloudy and his voice is deadpan And the killer smiled and the trial began The lawyers pose questions with answers prepared And the witness recounts but he seems not to care He’d been asking to die, someone answered his prayers The body is alive but the rest isn’t there But I was confused it was not what it seemed And the footage was twenty years old on the screen And the man this summer who took thirty lives Was the killer who so long ago testified He told them his pain gave him a new lease on life But he couldn’t go back no matter how hard he tried He’d lost something precious, it’s purpose went wrong The body is alive but the rest is all gone His world collapsed with the facade destroyed And all of the engines he had once employed Now drove him to kill as he finally saw That in the end his life had meant nothing at all It’s such a fine balance that keeps us alive With our dignity happiness, hunger and pride And they outline in chalk all the rules to the game But to kill it you just need to take one away You see there is a chain and it can never break And each link is a soul’s insignificant pain And we cut at each other with our words and our lies So we’ll never be whole until the end of time For much of my life I wished to disappear And just shatter the glass that was holding me here But i never could do it or see myself jumping See, in the end I’m constantly searching for something Now I’m just a man who can’t make up my mind I’m afraid to live but I don’t want to die So when I lie down in bed, my heart heavy with care My bed may as well be an electric chair

Autumn I want to go walking again maybe right after dusk With my keys in my pockets, get up and shake off the dust Because I’m getting strange as I sit here alone while my windows go black Like a far away screen shows a train as it jumps off the tracks Last week when we talked I was still doing fine But it doesn’t feel real as it did at the time I lived in a moment and that moment died Where does that place me? But I know we break through every now and again But only if I’m either drunk or in pain And all it amounts to is rattling the chains That constrict us I’m collecting the views that I find when I’m pulled out of place In the odd neighborhoods through the night or the wind or the rain And I keep them all hidden away between pages of books But when I try to share them they’re gone, I don’t know where to look The leaves lend their colour to asphalt in autumn For months until they’re washed away or rotten That’s guaranteed, even when it’s forgotten It continues Like the frames in their joy spinning off of the wheel That the eye can’t ensnare with its practiced appeal The image may flicker but never reveals Any meaning I’m riding through town on bus Bag of clothes on my knee Through the glass and the concrete are places that I just can’t reach And I’ve passed here before, but only at my own expense And through the gulf of routine This world didn’t seem so immense The highway rolls out and away and divides Into a sprawling ocean of tucked away lives Something was lost but the rest still survives The time passing The skyscrapers catching the dawn as it cracks Rise on the horizon and fall to my back There’s a promise of freedom before it retracts In the daylight I will count out every heartbeat and tally each breath Until the matter in the universe approaches heat death Every single instance forms an uncountable set Infinitely insignificant just lost among the rest So I move around, place my feet, it’s trivial and boring But I don’t have shit-all else so I write it like a story In the grand scheme of things the ending is probably coming shortly If it doesn’t turn out, I won’t ever say I’m sorry It started with a song that started with a track With me wandering the wilderness alone without a pack The lone wolf starves, I’ve confirmed it as a fact Nobody did this for me no one taught me how to rap The frost on the mountain is slowly creeping down Until it covers every house that makes up this small town Another spell of darkness within my mind’s bounds The hungry ones are waking I’m the coldest one around The streets are always chattering but never really speak But I know the mask they want so I’m humble and I’m meek But in my mind where I step even metal tears and screams And they only made me stronger when they took my dignity I wasn’t born with talent, just spurs in my side And a future that I wanted to destroy or deny I never loved my art but I made myself try Even if my best option was manufactured drive Because I’ve seen so many nightmares in other people’s live Like the six billion mirrors almost all worse than mine I couldn’t deal with what I had I struggled to get by So I must have been defective nothing else explains why The body is a prison and the prison is a throne And not a single one I've ever seen as a home But you know I’m ready for it because I’ve felt it in my bones Everything that’s ever been lives and dies alone

Self Effacer My old apartment looked out across a busy street The cold of December caused the window panes to weep We had a small electric heater sitting on the floor But that’s all over I don’t live there anymore The kettle is screaming and the pitch begins to rise The gas station keeps on glowing in the night And I’m staring at a bus as it stops outside With my shoulders bent over and my jaw clenched tight That’s me That’s me And I broke him down hoping it would make me grow strong Fed to the fires until the flesh was all gone Now the doors are all closed and the pain is just a song And there’s no way to know if the choice was made wrong That’s me in the old sweater, guitar at my chest Walls of cheap comics, long shallow breaths Embarrassed and angry and a fight to the death Didn’t know at the time what was left unsaid I used to play piano. There’s nothing here to eat Have to work in six hours still can’t get to sleep Eight hours of nothing, two more and then I’m free Forget the dead time that the days all bleed I’m drunk at midnight walking home in the rain Just two days later do the same thing again I hate the real world in my eye’s narrow frame I hide in the fevers I’m frightened and ashamed I live an empty odyssey that never got to start Cash in an envelope, days in a chart A stainless steel counter top reflected in my heart That I can’t get rid of once the world goes dark Unjustified memories screaming through my past I’m in debt to the future I but with these hands Each year I pay more, don’t think I’ll last With the scars of a life I let go on my back Bad dreams about work I’m still afraid to die I’m picturing an ocean of stars where I lie Head on my pillow, the world has gone quiet Except for the traffic as it drives on by I can’t answer questions or pick up the phone Nothing’s really changed but I feel more alone I tried to write it out, another empty poem And the sky came down and I lost another home But if I would rap like the wind flexed tight in a gale Hold the microphone and sweat until my kidneys fail Scream like I’m alive and the words aren’t stale Press against the walls until my last muscle fails That’s the people I’ve been, the ones that escaped The dreams aren’t real and the bruises all fade It’s a friend from your past that can’t remember your name It’s the one moment that you never hoped would change Words in my throat and burns on my hands Say I’ll fight against the silence for as long as I can stand I need to have existed, this wasn’t what I planned And the hourglass hammers on each grain of sand I’m a puppet on the ground with his fingers all broken off Clawing at the carpet just wanting to make it stop I couldn’t do it I was weaker than I thought Tried to fucking practice couldn’t even play at all I’m still feeding every day to a time that’s now disappeared Pulled from bow to stern across a future that I fear The message hurts and the meaning isn’t clear And I’m losing touch with all the things I hold dear Just a flash in eternity, lonely without a place The last abandoned satellite drifting in outer space The fire has been extinguished, the self has been effaced That’s me in the distance disappearing in the flames