Due Payment

The crushing weight of all you could be is falling on you,
you’re atlas with all his deeds in the form of a towering rock,
but you’re missing all your chances to turn it to rubble,
they’re pleading for you to take responsibility,
you’re crushing their souls and spirits as you run into nothing,
I’m picking bad hands, but you’ve always had an affinity for the eerie blackjack,
and I can’t help but notice you’re bluffing,
they’re coming for you now,
you’ve shrunk yourself to nothing, but they’ll find you still,
you may be a pebble,
but you’ve eroded them to gravel.

Calculation

You raise your arm and expect legions under your feet,
You play your world as if it’s a game easily won,
But I can’t help to notice manipulation is your gun,
And burning up in smoke is all your heat,
Maybe you’ll fall by your own ego,
And maybe you’ll miss all your chances.

Book Thief

I found her on the corner of the street;
trying to put together the courage to sneak through the shadows
and into the smell of a warm afternoon with a cup of tea,
the dead are calling me though,
they’re whimpering in their decay,
and their colors are fusing and shouting in my mind,
but I can’t keep my eyes off of her,
she’s staring at a library with longing and with self-hatred,
the sky thunders with blood and grief,
he’s calling me now,
now I know I can’t stay,
but as I pull the souls from this earth,
I keep looking back,
keep trying to find the book lover that couldn’t read.

Hue

Bland and unprepared,
They lavish it with praise,
And raise skeletons for ribbons,
Ribbons for medal honor and badge valor,
God, they know nothing of versicolor,
They sing of black and white but I have only seen reds and blues and yellows,
They mute the world, and everyone screams silent,
We meet on a blank canvas,
And the war begins and begins and begins,
We shatter, and we bawl, and we stutter, and we crawl,
Space and time stretch and convulse,
And in the end, we become just sepia, only sepia.

War

The ground becomes an earthquake,
in goes the headphones and out goes the pistol shots and bullet wounds,
I’m breathing in lyrics, so I don’t have to hear the screaming,
I will be deaf at twenty, and the doctor will ask me why,
and somehow I’ll have to explain that my eardrums have exploded,
from putting the music high enough that I can’t hear anything anymore,
(not even my heartbeat)
(not even my breathing)
(not even the singing).

Literary

You tell me you write,
but you use similes,
instead of metaphors,
and mistake commas,
for breaths,
your allusion cannot compare,
to my allegory,
and your motifs are so contrived.

To Be

Like hamlet’s madness,
I am hallucinated to flit out murder,
they call me insane,
but they commit crimes
that stink of stage players,
they find the spotted paper,
but they never connected the lines,
that mix revenge with confusion,
and love with desire.

Healer

Let me be your antidote,
I have all the answers,
(you’re just not asking the questions),
I’m trying to give you the medicine,
it’s spilling out of me — I’m made of broken glass,
and all I am trying to do is save you,
I have been a savior before,
(I’ve been called a destroyer before),
but I know I’m free from the disease,
so say yes and understand please.

Anywhere

I could be at the corners of everywhere,
And still find you there,
See you in my dreams,
In the folds and in the seams,
Where you would slip in, unseen,
And uncover all my hopes and fears,
Fill me up with smiles and tears,
Leaving me with an empty space,
As I try and try to leave this place.

Validation

You seek attention —
I give you none
(It’s my way of saying
you have all of it)