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