What was our life when it began?
Was there some beauty in the mess?
I've pondered years of interaction
Wondering if we should've met

Through hopeless distance, I adored you
In awkward silence, I came alive
If our whole lives were in this moment
Then there is meaning, I contrive

Perhaps a silhouette, a ghost now
Phantasmal dancing in the room
There was once some sense of happiness
In it's memory, I'm consumed

I turn my tired eyes towards our failure
Flipping through every empty page
This leather binding just reminds me
Of how I turned and walked away

But if you're reading, please believe
This book could be complete someday
I'll keep on writing, you here with me
Our story in a vibrant, colored array

This was our life when it began
There was beauty in the mess
I'd give up all my years of searching
Just to relive the moment we met

I remember it all now
The way it felt
The time, the era
Goddamn it was just yesterday
​But it wasn't
The innocence of the child
That I was
That I'm not anymore

The song
The resonance
The incandescence of a past age
My youth calls
A forgotten part of life
Begging to be heard again
He is not dead 
The me who sleeps in the deep

He's right there, smiling

Like there was something
That I'm meant to see 
The reverie, the memory
Crypt-digging
In a live mind
What does he want me to find?

A scrap of happiness?
An ash of aptitude? 
A remembrance of innocence?
What gift does the past give? 

All I remember is a simple bedroom
With a child's bed facing an open window
A comforting chair
A stream of sunlight, a gentle wind
And the songs of memory
Bringing me peace
Over and over again

And he's just sitting there... smiling

What do I have to do to get back there?
What do I have to do to be him? 

But wait...

I am him. 

And therein lies the pain. I remember this place. I remember that face and how I wore it that way. Like sadness was never ingrained. Like I'd never felt another way. I remember this place. I was happy this way. 

But some things change. 

​Life doesn't always continue this way. 

Tears do not befit you, darling
What troubles are so overwhelming that you would weep so?

Is it the ocean going home?
Or the tide of realization receding,
Leaving you cold and aware of your faults?

A baptism of knowledge and newfound morality is sweeping you
Like a frothy wave sent to consume the shoreline
And all the water you imbibed whilst drowning
Now streams down your face
In a flood of clarity and self-discovery
Despite the tears stinging your eyes
You see clearly for the first time

And it hurts 

The pain of regret weighs upon your lungs
Choking at every word you try to form
For lack of oxygen or better judgment
The truth hurts and sometimes it kills
At least now you know of your sin

But I know none of this is true yet

I know you are still drowning
All I can do is pray is that you learn to swim
But this is a prophecy 
Better yet, a promise
Someday soon the ocean will spit you out
From the depths where it held you for far too long
And you will fill your lungs with sweet air once more

This is a prophecy, a promise

Take what you want
Every ounce of sunlight
The sea beneath the sky if you must
The wind, the cold, the earth
Take what you want

I am a dreamer
Lost in ghostly presence
Take from me the memory
The twist in the sleepless world
Give it shape through insomnia
Let these pictures of endings cease
Let these visions of sleep convene

So soft is the thought
Savor it, savor it
Like the taste of fresh meat on the tongue
Let it fill in hearty fullness
As if one's own emptiness was now filled

But you were sleep 
The unattainable, tantalizing
As the child feels in want of Christmas morning
Only to find upon waking
That is is still the Eve
The longing now only extends

In the event of drifting between the realms
So soft, the thought
I can see moments of completion
With emptiness now made full
That, being the dream
Through sleep, the unattainable 
But savor it, savor it
Moments like these don't come too often

So in the event
That I am graced with a good night's rest
Let me slip into a coma
And never wake up
And never stop dreaming

Of you 

I am encapsulated means of destruction
A loose cannon under lockdown
At any moment set to burst
To become the unbridled rage of an explosion
To be the fiery end to my surroundings
But there is a comfort in letting it all out
To abate the flame and return to the norm
Like the renewal of the flash fire to the forest
Yet they oil my hinges but keep me in chains
 A muzzle prevents the spark
This mental block I have about losing control
About seeing the red I have heard so much about

There is comfort in letting it all out
Fire blazes to inferno and this passion is unstoppable
The unquenchable thirst for life and oxygen
To burn and to burn and you cannot stop me now
Inhibition is void
The sky blackens with ash and cinder litters the earth
And all the land is awash in war
Between my body and the loss thereof
You cannot contain me
I will consume everything surrounding

This is power
This is what they have harkened to so often
A terminal brand of insanity within balance
No order, just a red swathe of anger
It feels so right
It feels so right to fall from grace of normalcy
Never return me, incinerate for eternity
This is power I will not give back

May the vengeance of this anger serve its purpose
I shall not not stop at conclusion of my goal
I'll burn on and on
The fuel of the fire upon the sun, in me 
This is terror, this is violence
Supernova, I shall ascend
The purest release
You cannot contain me
​I will consume all 

I'll sleep a thousand summers 
Past the brave winter, to the frigid north 
In desolate absence of the southern wind
In this small town where the rain never ceases
And the windows on the houses are still always open
Where there are holes in every wall
With nothing more than sheets to shelter their cold toes
I've found a home here among the refugees
We're all so happy with our creator's hatred

We point our fingers to the sky and say rain
We look upon the ground and proclaim stone
We run to the river and yell flood 
We grip to the trees and whisper willow
For all we know is sadness 
All we have ever known is this town
And though the economy is stable
There is little to export and new immigrants enter daily

A small girl walks and places her muddied hand 
Upon the walls of the town hall
Spelling her late mother's name upon the only white building
Still left in town
The rain beats down and washes clean her hands
But the name remains
Immortalizing itself in the town's history
Slowly we all walk to see the name
And subsequently write one of our own
The walls begin to grow dirtier
And dirtier
Soon the building is filthy
And not a spot of cleanliness can be found

It comes to the point where I look around this town that I call home
And I stare at all the blackened buildings 
And I wonder how many names are written there? 
I wonder how many people look at these homes
And see nothing but terrible memories and pain? 
Those who see all the lost friends and family members within them
Those for whom love was written on the doors and in the hinges
And now these homes are bitter memories
Tainted reminders of happier times

I wish the rain would find a way to wash clean the stains
I wish the rain would find a way to wash clean the stains on me
But every house I see in this town
I can't forget
I can't forget all the happy times now gone
And all that is present is the rain
The rain as it soaks into the walkways of town
As it blocks the sunlight from our lives

I just want to see the sunlight
I just want to see the sunlight as it shone in older times
Back when life was better
Back when the walls were white with purity
When we closed our windows to block the southern wind
And had doors instead of holes in the sidings
I want to see the sunlight as it shone on the sycamores
Before they all slouched in somber remembrance
Of what this town used to mean to its denizens
And along with the trees, in turn followed the inhabitants
Until what you see is our home
As it is now
As we all are now

Played far from the surface
This facade you and I both conform to
Betwixt denial of something
Or arrogance on part of another
I cannot read your intentions so clearly
And thus ever deeper am I drawn 
Into you, into the night
Into something so completely against principle
For you, I am going against all principle

Obtuse thoughts dripped from concave fixtures
Deriving complex interjections from irrational minds
Don't say that you can save me
There is no coming back from this type of forethought
No type of recovery from the trauma induced thereof
Don't try and think that you can save me
The mind has gone away for good

It is all forfeit
The pain, the weakness
The indecision and the worry
What's the point?
When I won't see the tangible outcome
I'll sit here playing out my ideals
While the world will go it's own course
I'll be a still point in that turning world
A timeless thought stuck in a decaying frame
And with the world spinning
So will you too
Far away from the grasp of my ever-fading emotions

So this is where the story ends
With me sitting on a wintery knoll watching the snow fall
And you in a well-furnished home raising a happy family
While I brace myself against the cold
I'll smile
And know that I was the reason things never went right

I'll know that my indecision and fear
Are the reasons I'm always sitting alone in the cold at night 

(Hello.) Carry out another lost
(cause) of my problem is that I
(lack) of feeling and attachment from 
(her) eyes never look my 
(way) to Hell and back is littered with 
(my intentions) were in my own
(self interest) is all I have left. 

So force it down
Force down another swig of reason
There is no way to deny it's keen, enlightening stare

Now you're forcing me to quit
But I'm withdrawing of my own accord
The words are flowing inward and outward
But there's no way to judge how they're received
If the reception takes place at all anymore

For I've watched the next scene in this play
Where the small town boy finds his voice
And he tells the big city girl about his feelings 
And the curtain closes with a sense of dejection
The crowd all rising in protest of the woman
And how she couldn't show him the time of day
And how they really all know about the big city boy
But they can't tell small town boy; that's not the way shows are run
And when the curtain opens up again
The. crowd has already left 
Because like the man in the play
They know it never really gets any better
That this is Broadway in modern times
Pessimism
It's all that you'll ever see
That's all I ever see

I'm a fair actor though
So I'm going to front that it doesn't affect me
But what I really want you to know is this:

You have played your part for far too long
And now, much like the crowd,
I, too, will be departing. 

I'm trying to put a different take on this concept you call rage
I'm trying to look outside anger, something beyond hate
Loathing completely set aside
And I want to pick that all up in my chest
And aim it straight at you

I want to fill with every unhealthy emotion
Everything detrimental to my sanity, to everyone around me
I want to swell and become saturated
And destroy everything in my path until I reach you
I just hold such contempt for you all

But spin it, twist it, stretch out all the devilish thoughts and violence
I just can't conjure the spirit
I can't even be called to care enough to hate those who wrong me
The apathy is a disease
Debilitating, hindering

Because I would give my world to ruin yours
I would give the world to fight your fire with my inferno

But in my search for revenge
I've sought to to harness the anger, this spark of anguish
And all that's come of it is a frozen heart
Numbness of mind
Callous disregard of a world not so easily gained
But I'd throw it all away right now
Just to feel some small sense of anything
I need catharsis 
I need release

Who will provide?
Who can cool the burns? 
Who can warm the frostbitten?

Or is it just opposite sides of the spectrum?
Is there no middle ground, only polarized circumstances? 

I just want to feel alive
I want to feel alive and show you all what I will become
Without you 
Beyond you
Apathetic no more

It's just another moment where the walls crawl
The bottles empty over and over
But the tone is set the same
It's negativity without reprieve
It's a face without eyes

We cannot see, do not even think to look
Beyond the intrinsics of our stupor
And I love it, I've loved it all the way
blind, like I want to be
I want to be forever blind to the world

Because the bottles empty over and over 
And the walls still crawl
My insides never change
There's still a weak heart beating within
A sick, little liver hanging on the end of an empty stomach
It's all wired by a strung-out and malfunctioning brain
Given sight and direction by a pair of tired eyes
Everything's all so wearied and exhausted
Everything's all so beyond repair

I try to think otherwise but the thoughts aren't there
I try to motion myself in another direction but there's no will
There is no drive towards salvation
When there is no purpose

All of my life 
I've been waiting for this moment
Sitting here
Incapacitated, frozen
Staring at the walls, empty bottle in my hand
Thinking of you
Thinking of you and asking for purpose
Asking for reason beyond what I know
But the fact is I know you're not there
There is no clarity to the situation
There never has been and never will be

I can't blame you either
I really can't blame you for a thing
This is all my own doing
It's all in my own head
Mixed up in that strung-out, malfunctioning brain of mine
It's not your fault
This is who I am
Maybe I'd try to change it
But what's the point, really
When it's all been built to fail?
When it's all been made for nothing? 
Maybe a little clarity
Would be right
Maybe a sense of direction 
Would be just fine

But the walls are starting to slow their crawling now
It's time for another bottle - 
The one sense of clarity I have in this life 
My drive for salvation
My temporary purpose