Pretending

What do you fear the most:
your reflection of that ghost
that hangs on
the shoulders of your shadow?
The promises you've broken,
the truths never spoken
ball up into a cancer.
The lying's in the answer.
The chain you drag
you built
with hatred and heresy
and hallucinogens.
Your heavy heart
chugs blood along through
ungrateful veins
who simply spit it out.
So you bite your lips
'til they're chapped and bleeding,
feeding into delusions,
reading into illusions.
You swear the voices
get louder at night;
you sing to yourself:
it's alright, it's alright,
Rage dismisses your
half-hearted pleas.
He plays with your head.
He is such a tease.
When time builds no
brighter endings,
you might as well quit
all your pretending.

**************************************************







"So you crawl up those stairs and sing yourself to peace." Wild Sweet Orange House of Regret

"It's okay, it's alright, nothing's wrong." Elliott Smith Waltz #2

"I'm nothing it I'm not the rage." The New Amsterdams Drinking In The Afternoon

The Guilty and The Saved

When the world explodes
don't say You didn't
see in coming.
The seas are humming
and the skies are preparing
to plummet.
Are we Your puppets
or are me masochists?
Which winds will blow our seeds
into oblivion?
You see our shadows
lurking in corners and under beds.
Your sheep,
misbehaving so well:
they make the earth swell.
It's enough to make You weep.

A fire-breathing counterpart
counts down:
our days are numbered.
Fault feeds the flames.
Is a fall so far behind?
The end of times?
The daylight dissolves;
the heat rises.
The devil devises
his dreadful deeds:
that fiendish fallen angel.
Who will wake come morning?
The guilty or the guilty or the guilty
or the saved?
Who would know the difference
anymore anyway?

*****************************************

"Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away."
- Revelation 21.1











"The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
Percy Bysshe Shelley Ode to the West Wind

"Then they'll raise their hands, sayin' we'll meet all your demands, but we'll shout from the bow your days are numbered. And like Pharaoh's tribe, they'll be drowned in the tide, and like Goliath, they'll be conquered." Bob Dylan When The Ship Comes In

"I prayed for providence; God said, 'Don't pray no more. You went and made your mess, keep your blame off my feet.'" Kevin Devine All Of Everything, Erased

Hallucinating

You're allowed to look now;
this isn't a prison.
See, those walls are just air.
The shiny metal bars
are just figments,
apparitions.
Your far too busy brain
built them up,
but you have no savior
to break them down.
You're hallucinating,
but this is nothing new.

Dank depictions of doom
dance between your ears.
It's a fairy tale warning
that keeps you up at night,
makes you shiver in the sunlight,
makes you jump with fright.
In earlier soliloquies
you've heard yourself recite
your voice rattles
and your tongue bites.
On the ground
is where you'll end up.

Duck and cover,
cover up.
The poison that you swallow
won't kill you -
unless you're luck -
so drink up.
Baby,
they're only bad dreams;
they're all just bad habits
to blow off some stream.
No need to worry;
don't give it one more thought -

But those lessons you've been learning,
may need to be retaught.

************************************************

Continuation of a theme.











"I'm hallucinating -- hallucinating. I hear you cry. Your tears are cheap, wet hot red swollen cheeks, fall asleep. I want to hurt him. I want to give him pain. I'm a roman candle. My head is full of flames..." Elliott Smith Roman Candle

"Why don't you give yourself a rest, oh give yourself some room? You can't get your arms around everybody. You cannot carry the doom... AA Bondy When The Devil's Loose

"Drink up, baby, stay up all night with the things you could do, you won't, but you might. The potential you'll be that you'll never see. The promises you'll only make..." Elliott Smith Between The Bars