The sky chokes on black water thick and heavy A single unborn raindrop is waiting to break the levy yo I’m strapped in, ride alone, silent in procession Towers rise, anxious mind revs with the engine And the highway pitches forward odometer needle deep in the red Another clock trying to cheat me again Then 100 megawatts on the horizon burn cold Venus rising daylight bleeding out I’m going home Memory leaking leaving stains on the pavement Slow deep breathing is just pressure on my patience Keys heavy in my hand the safe house is compromised Hot adrenaline spills from my subconscious mind It’s playing tricks on me, load and dump the clip on me To break the grip that’s trying to hold sleep and appetite I hit the cabinet hoping melatonin ibuprofen Both empty notions to a cut that never cauterize Fuck it, I do better with placebos Ginger ale, cough syrup brain curled fetal Trying to vent the pressure before the force turn lethal So I fortify my walls just hoping that I’m equal to the task Of staying balanced don’t think it will last When the pressure from my roof is coming down on my back Because the rent is going up, but my wages still frozen And my safety has been ilusion since before my diagnosis Alone close the door and kick my shoes out from under me Hungry ghosts clawing at the walls that keep me company The only creatures that I know that don’t try to run from me You can call it cabin fever I just think it’s humbling. Shrinking in my chair I drink tea made with lacquer Then start to mummify above the long fallow pastures Always half awake, always scrambling for answers. Withered by the drought and the natural disasters The unwilling ascetic living off roots, seeds and medications Dehydrated skin stretched and marked with lacerations Stomach empty ‘cept for pills in deep contemplation Attached to his self can’t escape I’m a Bloodshot insomniac as I drive onto the highway Every time a car pass I wonder if I die today Every day repeat the ritual I can’t break the rhythm Chasing sleep around the clock trying to run from my symptoms Yeah to hell with this existence Tree with dead roots still persisting Yet crippled by the cancerous condition Choice already made, no escape from the prison I can be replaced in an instant Because diploma or the job or the lease don’t make you safe Those are comforts not armor I don’t see them as the same You think a roof can catch a bomb? It can barely stop the rain You think a ballot slows a famine it just burned up in the flames So I learned a sense of urgency and set a frantic pace Because I need to find an answer to this irrational pain Like the sand in an hourglass resolve falls away And I’m running out of answers growing more afraid to fail I don’t want to catch myself with blood pouring off my hands Wishing that I actually told my ex how proud of her I am Think of all the damage I could do in a momentary lapse I discard the facets of myself then can’t get them back In fact, more than half the time I feel the man’s already gone And the person that remains here is just a shadow in the dawn It’s taken almost all I have to write my story into song While the only purpose in my life is outliving my mom I’m not sure where I went wrong, I only did what felt safe And my every effort was in thankless service to my brain It haunts me every moment, every minute, every day The ever-present gnawing urge to open up my fucking veins The wolf of Ragnarok is slowly chewing through its chains Pillars of fire rise, crops fail the corn dies Streets deserted cities foreclosing Starvation and exposure both are game over The tides are pulling all the soil into the deep I seen the image turning over medicated dreams That lurk behind alarms and the repeated daily scene Permeated by futility that’s deeper than fatigue

My body’s language is stifled by The soaring notes of a castrati’s pride There’s longing hidden somewhere But I don’t know how to unlock it And I can’t keep my composure When I move like a spinster, dance like a soldier So now the only thing I do when we speak Is hope you that can’t tell how much I want you to like me I wonder how well You read beneath my surface There is so much weight I’m carrying That serves no real purpose It’s all organs sealed away in jars Formaldehyde soaking into scars I wish I could offer something simple instead Because I’m not sure how many times I can make the attempt Two lost souls sitting by the docks One’s locked in his head completely lost I want to reach out across the sea Throw away these memories They aren’t me Just dead weight in my chest that you don’t need I’ve been hiding all these agonies that mapped out my existance But everything ends up the same I don’t know why I resist it Couldn’t tell what you noticed, couldn’t phone it in, couldn’t cancel you might not invite me again You’ve gotta put myself at stake to make a friend But if you still want to get to know me I’ll do my best Two ships pass each other in the night I wonder how far you were on the other side I want to reach out across the sea Throw away this longing It’s not me Not me I don’t want to run and hide when it rains I wish I could believe this will work for a goddamn change I want to break out To break free From everything that my heart still thinks it needs It’s just dead weight in my chest that you don’t need

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 tarfired 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 ahold 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 Moulded 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

Sitting on a metal bench Gate D 24 Bag in my arms feels enough like home Still raw from the sleep I hear voices calling me on the intercom. And then the dam breaks Phone is going off as I’m stepping on the plane People asking where I am Mom’s saying it’ll be ok Just so long as I survive she says I’m not to blame I didn’t want the plans to change But I’m not going through this whole routine again So I’m breaking away My eyes are pale glass The horizon is a lie Breaking from the tarmac, swallowed by the sky It’s not real. I’m just words on a screen, a foreign newspaper Everyone I know wants to make the most of me But they keep letting my hopes turn to flesh in their teeth But I was just trying to steady myself A gentle pull was all I needed Well I’ve been burning out for such a long time Taking all the medications I was prescribed Without question or complaint as the embers died The tangled web of choices that led me to this place Is long gone in half remembered haze My desperate aspirations numbed and fell away The torture and the longing sharing the same fate I’ve always felt so thoroughly displaced Coming home at night was like pulling over on the highway And I’m not cheating anyone if I throw it away I wasn’t guarding anything that you can’t easily replace And now the high priest says I need to die So the crops will grow and the sun will rise But I’ve done it so many times And I’m getting tired Eternally repeating the same day I’m a knife on a grindstone fading away Worn down but no sharper in a rusty grave To hell with my return ticket I don’t need anything I can’t maintain

Train rattles on its tracks Packed to rafters As silhouetted buildings fly past And I stand uneasy Jostled with a steel bar in my hand And I can’t find balance Shift on my feet as turns complete Bag on my arm got my shoulder tweaked Then the brakes engage wheels start to shriek By blood or bone I still need an answer Before I errode in the blasting wind Since all my options are closing in I’m impatiently wasting my ligaments So I step from the from the car to the station And start pacing alongside crowds That seek out new lines sprawling out Cross districts and towns in the endless lights and sounds Crowned by skyscrapers rising Glass windows shine burning nuclear fire in the night The nexus flex its might As cargo ships by the fleet arrive Alongside tankers with precise movements That bring in the city’s black blood transfusions Neon lights like fireworks bloom Over speakers and storefronts blaring music Overpasses coil like snakes Traffic rush ground starts to shake Taxis and trucks with heavy freight On concrete veins as they circulate I walk on the roads As they split and change Capillaries side streets alleyways Through cigarette smoke in a drifting haze And charcoal grills set fresh ablaze Bars and shrines both dodge development Dead ends collect the city's sediment Gutters expose the soul and skeleton While odd shops drift towards corners and settle in Between old homes worn down by time With clothes hung out on lines to dry Junked bikes locked up in the yard Stand guard as families are born and die I’m trying to fade away Then find a way for my veins and bank card both to drain Final resting place In these buildings built on buildings built on graves Vain hopes that I’ve humoured Doubts grow like tumors Consume the flesh until all that’s left Is absolute truth wasted future Double check the room then check out From the guest house make sure I’m erased Each trace packed away in my bag Nothing left of myself then I'm up and I step out. I feel the wilds encroaching Dark themes in my thoughts exposed On moss covered steps draw each breath slow Won’t turn back don’t know where I’m going Don’t care just put this world behind me No rhyme no reason just flee society No one left to stand beside me I don’t need shit if I can’t provide it Violence tides break through the dam Walk between trees see burning ash Inhale pure air like sarin gas Black heart bastard that I can’t move past Then the moment pass I’m so small so scared My rage is a speck of dust in the air So weak and selfish all hell laid bare No part of the strength that I seek is spared I only want to feel safe These causes I bled for hang by a thread Any day the balance could break Then its castles of sand again Washed away by capricious rain That is unless I can do it first With these two hands To unmake these delusions and plans Is the fate that I prefer Might burn but I won’t succumb to the curse So purposeless and this struggle senseless My dignity deeply infected Fuck life’s illusion I rejected I’ll cause the end if I can’t prevent it

I’m worried That I’m not up to this task And I’m leeching the bad blood away As fast as I grow it back In this modern life, anesthetized Just-getting-by program No this ward isn’t somewhere I can heal I’m sorry mom, this wasn’t part of the deal Besides each bridge just crumbles No matter how well engineered So I’ll be a fraying knot if cut In five or fifty years I’m all loose ends and plot holes In a haze that never clears No answers wait at the end of the road But my hands cramp on the wheel I can’t let go Drifting in and out of sleep I lose a day, I lose a week I’m always trading new routines That wash across my mind I couldn’t tell you what I’ve missed My parents say I was a happy kid There’s still so much that I regret I wish I’d bought more time If only I had met you years ago While I could still be of use Before mounting rejects Led to even more self abuse. I know that you don’t think of me As much as I think of you, So you could win years of devotion with a word But would you want to when I am this insecure? Then as thoughts of you keep me awake Slow seconds turn to decades Turn to centuries,  Soon the sun grows in the sky Consumes the morning star’s small light Forests slowly take to fire Blood runs free at last. Empty buildings overgrown Burn alongside scattered homes Mountains crumble, shattered stones Bury a forgotten past. The ashes of ancestors Rise in the dust and smoke They carry unfulfilled promises In a procession of ghosts As the final few join in with words Caught in their dusty throats Each heart spills bitter yearning on the earth The grim wage of each and every uncertain birth Thus it will be until the end of time Thus has been every life and will be mine

I looked down the other path for some time A bitter longing crushed the air from my chest I watched him sit enshrined in rotting concrete Dead skin sloughs off like falling leaves in a warm autumn rain While wind howls in empty windowpanes And ambiguous hopes leak past the walls of sleep but there is ecstasy in certainty Perception hangs suspended on a reaching frame The only parts of me that touch this place are thin and far away I don’t want to be hollow anymore just tissue clinging to brittle remains While tired bones turn to stains on the aged cement The well is running dry The black ink scabbing over and clotting on the brush that no longer weeps with the page All the things I shared in common with this world Will continue when I’m gone But with one less imperfection to mar its grim indifference And my blood will seep into the rising tide Each perfect symphonie born of human mind could not move me to forgive These naked apes, these greedy mouths, these teeming seas Silent marching of microbes grown invincible through adversity Will turn your organs out upon the fallow earth in a bloody tide Climbing mountains of burning books lungs choking, black and tarred The scourge of the sun, the boiling oceans, will wipe you clean will be a mercy Scoured from this rock into the black embrace of empty space This is only a kindness All the things I shared in common with this world Will continue when I’m gone But with one less imperfection to mar its grim indifference And my blood will seep into the rising tide All the things I wanted to share with this world Could be found in any other lonely heart But without the needs of a seedling beaten down by a raging gale Or washed away in the rising tide

Past the Walls of Memory Sand is scouring my roots again A vessel full of life Trailing on his mother’s heels Passes by, and the sinking time See’s her efforts fade behind The walls of memory Even my first clamorings at love Are going the same way Once warm treasures Now, beginning to surrender To this brutal moment Where there’s only pain I’m drifting out and in Past and future both unclear I’m afraid of what I’ll see But the hospital bed Can’t be so different from The fluorescent lamp and screen That always sit in front of me To let my thoughts all leak Sterile blankets and white sheets Quiet muttering TV Barely heard or seen Is it torture is it sweet? An inevitable snare? Is there escape? Can I break free? And If the trap is already sprung, How can I shed The deep thoughtless regrets to save Some small dignity? I was trying to picture a better place In my mind Somewhere it’s taking shape But I can’t recall the way And each choice I make sees Land erode More than sleep there is a cruel fatigue Taking hold of me I can’t bring myself to hope again When everything I reach for is consumed In a haze Like every old friend Inevitably drifts away The fox in the rope twisted and changed Watched from afar asphyxiate Ahhh what is this that churns in my veins? Maddening hunger Lilly white petals between red teeth Embraced by hooks shattered in between Aren’t you just a chemical? Is there no kinder dream? Unused but not forgotten Just beyond the streetlights An ancient shrine holds Two carved wood foxes That watch with sightless wooden eyes The fleeting wisps of smoke Rise! From black burning lotus As raindrops trickle past the leaves Lose themselves in dirt and earth In shapeless running streams Rise! Final plumes through sapphire canopy Into the dark and empty Eons Beyond the sky Where glints of light, Newborn stars, spring to life and die Quick as sparks from a flint Ignite from unbroken streams In the unstained void Ephemeral eternity