Careful What You Feed, It Might Follow You Home
I.
I don’t know who I am
I’m just them.
Why does every mistake have to be a disaster?
Why does every step I take have to get faster?
Do one thing.
Do it slowly.
Do it completely.
With love.
Phone’s always ringing. Alarm clock keeps on singing. Park a mile from work just to have a thought. Tried to turn all this off. Tried to give love another shot. Tried to quit smoking pot. Tried to do everything. Tried to do everything. Tried to do everything. But I’m interrupted.
Want to eat but don’t grow my own food. Want to sleep but kept up by this dream. Want to quiet my mind but thoughts are racing all the time. Spiral and they swell but how it’s going man? It’s going well. Seen anything good recently? Not on TV? This show’s off screen. This show’s scary. This shows dying babies. This shows apathy. This shows $4 coffee. This show’s temporary. This is reality.
A cat in heat prowling the street looking for the place we said we’d meet. The backwoods have always been my jam and I am who I am so why are you calling me out on it, man? I’ve got so much love in my heart. I’ve got so many plans to start. I’ve got so much power in my soul. So why do I feel incomplete and act like an asshole?
II.
You’re terrible at simply being alive
Just enjoy what you have so long as you can
There's white helmets getting shot in the mouth
while you’re traveling around Europe
Telling me what it’s all about. While there’s
babies on the border just waiting to die and the
Church has been silent, spare a few practiced lines.
Tell me: do you relate to who you’re kneeling beside?
If I don’t stop thinking,
I'll drink ‘til I die.
Want to make lemonade but thoughts reach for antifreeze- anything to survive winters like these
some days are better than others but looking for non-existent brothers.
Sucks to be the only son
the only one who can’t get a grip in this club.
Frostbite made fingers numb
when I warm up pain comes shooting
III.
Careful what you feed it might follow you home. Bad habits when you’re alone making you feel less and less real. A robot you don’t taste your meals. Shove it in your mouth. Forgot how to feel, forgot how to heal through that instant lens. Grew flashbulb eyes. Gave in to something I despise. Why did I dig in to what only fed me lies? Thought someone in my bed would help me get out of my head. Stop wishing I was dead. That’s not what should be in my cup. Not how you keep your back from freezing up. Lay my hands on top of my head. Let it flow down my veins until it slows down my brain. Learn to live with the pain.
Don’t need to leave to explore. Don’t need to see to adore. Don’t need to run to escape. Come back into your body whenever you remember to get out of this party
to get out of this part
to get out
out
out
out
out
At the secret show I had to let go of the person I want you to be. The person imaginary. The person temporary. Not the person I see. Not who you were to me. Didn’t expect you to be free. Didn’t think you were bothered by me. You booty called some body. Couldn’t look me in the eye. Forget who you are when you’re high. I went home alone. Turned off my phone. Found some peace. Pain still hasn’t ceased.
Realized I was wrong. Long since gone.
On top of that mountain I wanted to fill my hands- not with sand- but with something I could hold on to. I thought that was you.
IV.
Do not react, simply observe.
Focus on your breathing.
Lose your mind so you can start feeling
The sensations of your body. Warmth of a shower. Rinsing of water. Feel your shoulders relax, sink into the mat. Come into contact with wherever you’re at.
V.
This is when I found out I could break a heart:
Drunk driving down summit avenue, our legs dangled off the cliff. She told me she was going blind. She told me true love was hard to find. She told me she felt second in line
to this girl I barely know. To this girl who’s become a shadow.
VI.
This is how I found that ghosts can be haunted, too:
I’m dancing alone in the face of all these familiar faces. They’re strangers to me now. I do not carry them under the stars. I am with my body and my body is alone. It does not matter who else is in the room.
It is only mirrors when you look at me
so I do not hold the gaze.
I do not try to escape the maze.
But I might just burn it down.
Dancing alone because the the parts unseen
Are the only parts me.
Everything else is just breeze.
I won’t pretend to be unphased
by the position of the moon,
by bar close too soon,
By- Goddamn, I miss June.
VII.
This is how it’s been:
On my back on my bed on my mind on whatever drugs I find at the time.
Whether or not there’s extra heat- the reactions have no passion.
Want to make love but instead mistakes. Into love I do not leap, I do not fall. I simply dig the hole.
You lay asleep and I lay awake
thinking about tectonic plates,
thinking about my soulmate,
thinking about moving states.
VIII.
So this is how it is:
I’m tortured or I’m bored
By something can’t be ignored.