I'm a book of fables. I'm the reckless hell you dream of when you sleep. I'm a starving dog with fiery eyes staring at a rotten piece of meat hanging from the bones on the bodies in the streets of dead men that meant nothing to everyone. Shedding my exoskeleton and exposing the raw and naked truth: Inside were just insects, irrelevant, insisting on some understanding of why we move and breath, but we don't. We just eat, sleep, and die and believe.

At my best, I'm full of beer I'm a fearless wreck, I'm a reckless fool I'm a drunken jukebox that no one wants to hear Well, the cards were dealt and you made no move You just folded out like a coward would If you don't play the game, son, you may never win Do you have the capacity to believe in things? If you don't, then you're nothing You're a waste of kinetic energy She's undressed under the sheets She's the ball and chain when it's time to leave When she wakes up every time I try to sneak out the goddamn door You dream for outer space, you'll wake up with headaches You're reaching for stars and shaking with back pain It's not having what it takes It's taking what you've got and making the best of a bad situation Was I misinformed? Did I stare at the sun too long? The sun never does discriminate It never weeps for a coward or a hero He just keeps burning on

This ain't a book, it's a mirror telling stories I am no poet, I'm just desperate for attention Beneath this callous skin I'm really just a raw nerve Inside me you'll find a need suspiciously familiar Eyelids shut tight We see the awful things we think but fear to speak out loud As if thoughts were sins, and transgressions were dreams we don't allow When she touches those awkward nerves does it shiver your spine? Do cringe and wish she didn't or do you like what you find? I'm not a vandal but an artist who believes in practical expression. I don't paint pictures, I destroy them No apologies, your actions write the stories Live with your decisions. Would you dare to live life boring? Submerged in apprehension, like a child in the deep end, it's not the water that you fear, it's the comfort that you've been missing. Perhaps a hypocrite, I'm just a mouth that tries to speak some truth, a maladroit with visions, an assumed liar with something to prove... I just want to touch something that touches back. I want to breath where my lungs can expand and retract without being confined to a place and a time. We were star-crossed lovers with star-crossed eyes

Two more cans went out the window “Here’s another one,” she said We drove hours down dark country roads while we were drunk as hell, chasing whiskey with malt liquor and sins with amphetamines to not pass out With new crimes for each new state We’ll never see the jail cells in all the small towns we leave behind Inspired drunken dreams; familiar faces, slightly older Bitter grins show our failures and weary spirits We lost time and youth to indifferent towns This is me hiding from everything we said we’d never become. So we drink our beer and sip our wine With this knife, I’ll cut myself down to size I’ll cut away this brain and rotten flesh I’m just a corpse now, I died 6 years ago I’m walking meat and bone that won’t catch on.. We were crippled at birth when we first fed from our mothers with the oxytocin running through our veins

I stagger/recover. A drink with my brothers. Will we ever know what glory is? Will we ever repent for our sins? I search for the words, I sever the nerves... Will I regret when I wake up? Will I forget and make the same mistakes again? I never surrender, I never win either... I'm in perpetual motion. Sober or not, here I come. Am I chasing my tail or chasing the sun? I want to know what it takes to go home with what we all really want.

Cigarette burns on my pearl-snap shirt remind me of cold nights out on the back-porch when the future was so bright, I swear to god, our eyes were glowing. So much can change in the span of three years. We rearrange our lives just to keep moving forward. I'm making no progress. In my dreams, I'm just a fly circling your lips A million lies for compound eyes, One mangled hypocrite smashed against the wall I'm not dead yet... I lost my footing and it knocked me out cold for weeks at a time. I sleep where the sun keeps me warm and at night I lead the streetlight choir singing, "This song is my body, these words are my blood. Drink from this cup, and know what it is to be loved. Then try to forget it." When you wake up in the morning, convince yourself you've got a reason to get out of bed. Well, you're not dead are you? You're just waking up and walking out that door, Trying to convince yourself you know what your really leaving for.