The Human Response

Turn down the sound of silence
Let’s bask in the noise of violence
Demonstrate that human response
Well when you gotta fight and cry
And steal and lie
For every scrap of meaning
Come celebrate with me the eve of my decline
We’ll sit like we were waiting for a sign
Saying, “oh love, stay with me”
Lying in bed feeling all alone
Every night when you’re at home
Well, maybe it’s easier to be like that
Than living life on your knees
Begging, “oh lord, forgive me please”

We’re nothing but dead bodies in the gutters tonight
No place to be but here, to watch them cry
And tonight we’ll watch the children die
No fault of ours so we’ll just stand idly by
And it was eye for an eye until we were all blind
Mumbling all of our goodbyes
And letting our mouths do all the talking
Cause maybe that’s easier than living
And getting so tired of staying
When did we forget our dreams?
Those hot summer days when we could be anything
Back when we took what we could and never apologized
When we were ready for it all and never realized
That we wouldn’t be fine with all the failure in our lives

Back when we were just kids and it was alright
To skin our knees and get dirty till night
Back when we rode our bikes around the cul-de-sac
Pretending we were going places and never coming back
But now we’re dumbing ourselves down for the masses
So one day we can fit into a mold
Being the round peg in the square hole
Walking the streets, trying to be a soldier
Fighting for your beliefs or what was told you?
Now it’s just self-medication and sedation
Numbing yourself down until you put out that fire
You watch fights on TV instead of beating on me
But no little blue pill can make you love yourself
You would have been disgusted to be part of our lost generation

And now we can’t even disconnect and we can’t be free
You’ve taken back everything you said to me
Where are all the tears you shed for someone else?
Can’t you spare any for yourself?
What about our futures that once shone so bright
But are now almost out of sight?
Our dead dreams may just be sleeping still
If at the wake you finally realize
You are just burying yourself
And maybe the human response
Has steered you wrong, your knee-jerk stimuli
And maybe you can still remember
Those dreams locked away in a corner of your mind
That once we were both happy when I called you mine

Lessons

Lately we’ve been trapped by all of this fear
Lately just wishing we could disappear
Well there’s more to life than drifting through the days
There’s more to do than trying to get away
And when I call, feeling lost, empty in need
With my loneliness in my voice plain to see
I’ve been thinking too much about what we lose
I have to be reminded that’s the life I always choose

But why do I spend so much time remembering
When you’ve already forgotten me?
I’m stuck on that beach, that windy day in October
But you’re long gone, long moved on already
Our ghosts are written into that sand
Preserved as a memory years in the making
I admit I still get a little nervous
When you think I need a little saving

Well the days are always getting shorter
Or they’re always getting longer
But there's a balance between lying and believing
And it’s a great time for getting even
So across the room I can see you there
With your come hither glare
Even through experience, after our history
I guess for me mistakes still come easily

So I was lying with my flippant words
Trying to hide my childish nerves
My legs shaking under the table
Even my disobedient teeth tight and disabled
Still pretending to be uncaring
So you’ll never see my rebellious heart
Doing too good of a job in the end
Too much practice driving us apart

We’ve been recovering since all those years
We’re moving up tonight, no more fear
Well look at you now, you’re a sight to see
No more lies, all defiance and authority
We can be more than happy to watch the scene unfold
The unbelievers swept away in the undertow
Remember you’re only as mean as you don’t mean to be
One more chance, our hard lessons we must repeat

Strange City

Here is how life goes:
You’re not happy with what you got
There’s always somewhere else to be
You want to be what you’re not
And oh you get so bitter
With nothing real to show
For being so unfaithful
To those poor hearts you broke
And oh your eyes grow red
Silent on your side of the bed
I’m sorry he thought you asleep
When you only needed to weep

But oh I was dreaming of you
When I had the strangest thought
I was in a strange city
And you were there with me
So everyone in this town
Was someone in ourselves
People who loved you
People who loved me
And even people we loved and hated
Oh, all our enemies
But it was all familiar faces
No strangers’ identities

I dream often of this dark city
That we brighten with our souls
Our smiles are the streetlights
The sound of traffic is our laughter
The woman on the corner is your mother
The man walking by is my brother
And there’s that easy familiarity
Even with the people you said you hated
We know each other so well now
Even our well worn dislike has abated

But when I awake in the morning
I wonder when we forgot our dreams
And you shouldn’t need a photograph
To remember the last time you felt alive
So maybe on the nights
When you can only cry
You can wander down the street
To where no one says good bye
And you’ll be happy and pretty
You’ll be so relieved and free
To be with your closest friends
Even your so called enemies

For Jenna, On Her Wedding

And so begins this chapter in our lives
We are ready, you and I
We’ll live happily ever after
With diamonds in the floor and stars in the rafters
We’re so free and ready
To be with those who make us happy
So every promise that we made
We swear to always keep
We’ll be living to the fullest at dawn
When we want to stay asleep
Because life is too short to worry through
And there’s always more to say and do
But when life is hard, as it sometimes is
Remember the little things that made you laugh
And the bigger things that made you cry
And always remember to remember
You cried and laughed and you’re still alive
Because now we promise to ourselves
Years from now we will still be in love
And it will always be enough
And every day we will laugh more
We will love more, dance more, live more
We’ll be happier and smarter
More beautiful than ever before.
We are ready, you and I
To live with diamonds in the floor
And stars in our eyes.

Sunday Morning

Dawn broke late again today
No sleep for the young except the early grave
Empty bottles clustered in huddled masses of warm beer
All the kids tired and sick, weary of their fear
Started the night with five drinks and a fight
Swelled a man's eye shut, didn't matter who was right
Afterwards we swallowed away our pain
All those bitter capsules, we forgot their names

I remembered the morning we spent by the lake
That night we almost missed the last ferry we could take
The afternoon spent ankle deep in the sea
Watching those happy people getting married
Me and the kids drinking and singing the night away
If you think you love something, destroy it for a day
Oh, it was fire water and pills that kill
Hard drugs and hard memories, we've all had our fill

Expired prescriptions for sicknesses we don’t have
Muscle relaxants and amphetamines so it’s not all bad
Well we tried our best to commit suicide
We’d had enough of running, now it was time to hide
There’s a shelter in yourself where you don’t feel like dying
We had liquor for the pain and Xanax for living
I commiserated with the broken hearted
All those lost souls that never finished what they started

It was getting early when I drove out to the park
Stumbled onto the grass and fumbled in the dark
Hid my car from the cops in the cul-de-sac
Smoked all my cigarettes, calling for you to come back
Weak kneed, trouble breathing, eyes dim and red
Oh, I was still alive but still feeling dead
Got high on the swings, got low on the slide
I cried and I lied, I spent the night outside

I was strung out on speed and homegrown weed
When the sun came up I felt empty in need
So I staggered out to church and I fell to my knees
And I said, lord oh lord won't you believe in me please?
I'll return the favor
If only you’d save her
Another night spent surrounded and alone
Waiting for you to come home

God Made Man In His Own Image

Welcome to the electric pulses
Of our existential comedies
Lightning eyes winking out
Camera lenses turning shut
On our whirring clockwork hearts
The animals in our lifeblood, salty as the sea
Just food and fuel to the parasites in our bellies
Every egg a planet
Every sperm a maggot
Our battery draining thinking machines
Wasting all our energies
Opening our mouths,
Full of gap-toothed gears
All the better to grind you with
Artificial arms for a cold steel embrace
All the better to measure you with
In my left hand, potential
In my right hand, denial
Where we were is where we’re going
We are going to become one with god
Welcome to the fingers crossed
In our mechanical tragedies
We are going to have as much power as god
Every perfect copy a wave in the sea
Of our digitally precise human grid
We are going to have the knowledge of god
Of all the stars in your eyes that reflected me

The Good Life

Seven AM and I'm going to bed
Another night spent worrying all alone
The sun's coming up and my eyes are red
Another night waiting for you to come home
Maybe I'm living the good life you left for dead
I'll drink with friends and laugh till dawn
But let’s not dwell on what I said

Loving and being loved seem so far out of reach
It was a long time ago when I was still young
I learned the lessons life had to teach
That there’s no kind of love like the love you lose
And when it comes to luck you make your own
Or people will either use or be used
And there are those who are just abused
But there are the ones who love to live
Because they have all life has to give

Well, my heart’s giving up on all this abuse
And maybe it’s time that yours did too
Remembering the little things that made you laugh
Or the bigger things that made you scream
Whispering in my mouth when you were happy
Both of us just as content as we seemed
Yeah, we were living the good life we left for dead
Maybe we really thought it could last

So if you think it's too easy to be misled
Well, just use your ears and eyes
And say all of your goodbyes
But don't believe everything I said
Or even all the things you see
Darling, please forgive me
And the way I was bred
Now that you’re privy to my lies
You should say all your goodbyes
Because now nothing’s getting in your head

Because in the end here’s how it’ll turn out
We’ll both be looking for something
Two cars in the night with our lights out
Just wanting to put it all right
Needing to know what our lives were about
Well, I remember the night I kissed you
So hard there were tears in your eyes
And they were the color of water,
The eyes of my former lovers
When we thought to ourselves, maybe the good life
Won’t be out of reach tonight

Rearranged (AFB)

I’d gone too long without dreaming of dying again
I lost my life like I lost my mind
Letting it all go, leaving everything behind
This place was meant for living and then moving out
I was sitting in the shadow of an air force base
Thinking of people it may as well have erased

I dreamed I met you again
But no hello like we were old friends
You were a stranger in every sense of the word
Like there was no one like you in the world
Well your body’s the same
And your face hasn’t changed
Maybe you have the same dreams
Deep in your brain

But your heart is new and wild to me,
Untamable and inaccessible
Mysterious and impenetrable
Well that’s when it started to pour
So it was hand in hand into the rain
Wanting to ask you your new name
Flagging taxicabs, running from something
We rode all night to escape our lives
War and peace, love and hate
Isn't it all the same?

We ran for days and days
But we didn't get anywhere
Mile after mile stretched behind us
But in the end nothing changed
Baby, it's been years and years
But nothing was even rearranged

Now it’s waking up to giving up everything
Just so we could find something
Please, just to put your hands on anything
It’s just living like there was no other way
Just knowing you’re dying every day
With every single breath you take
And well you’ve just got to fight and cry
And steal and lie for every scrap of meaning

And it’s thinking about how we spent our final moments
How your last night at home we laughed until dawn
In the face of that sorrow we pretended nothing was wrong
Yeah, covering up all that pain we can hide
Trying to make believe like nothing died
But maybe there’s still a chance we can still get out
Maybe it’s not too late for us to figure out
There’s still you and I and we’re still alive
And there’s still always the night when I
Kissed you so hard there were tears in your eyes

Heart of the World

I’ve been walking through the rain to the ends of the world
Passing through the same towns as you might have gone through
I’m on my way to the center of the earth
Trying to find my way to hell
And ghosts of people, maybe ones who’re not yet dead
They meet me at every little goddamn turn
Standing over their tiny open graves, smiling
And they say to me: “Son, you gotta bury your heart here
Leave behind that heavy part of you
Just go on living with only the truth
And the belief that you can be content.”

And well let’s pull that iron curtain back and open the door
Let’s tear up all the carpet and see what’s under that floor
Like maybe we were hiding something from
Anyone who could have cared
Why’s it so hard to open up our hearts?
We keep shutting each other out of our lives
As if we could shut out the pain.
So if you used to believe in God, or still do
Well, there’s nothing I can say to change that in you
So I’ll still bow my head and say grace over our food
But inside I’ll dedicate it to you.

But now I wonder if you dedicated each day
To the sole purpose of just running away
Maybe hoping someone would catch you and say
“My, what a pretty young thing you are.”
Maybe then you would finally want to stay
Maybe you would stop feeling like a runaway
You could stop being so much like a suicide
Maybe I wasn’t your favorite way to die
No you’ve picked another poison now, a brand new way
To close your little eyes and go to bed
Isn’t life easier with happiness in it?

So I’m on a train now just going nowhere
Swinging my boots, kicking up the dust of the world,
Letting my sorrows pass me by
Truth is I’d ride to the end of the line
Turn this thing around and go to the start of it all
Like maybe I could change something or be at all
Satisfied with myself
I’m standing here on the edge of the world
Kicking stones into eternity
Like I could find happiness at the end of it all
Well, I certainly hope so

So I’ll turn my back and allow myself hope
That maybe I won’t need a flashlight or any rope
I won’t need a compass or even a map
To navigate your soul
And when finally I get to where I’m going maybe
I’ll find peace in the heart of the world
Sitting in my cradle being content at last
Like I found my road to hell
Paved as it is with good intentions
Maybe it could also follow conventions
And be straight and narrow at least

Chalk Dust

Chalk dust on the sidewalk
Next to the vote for me’s and interest meetings
To show you how impermanent you are
Like a snowflake or a hall
In the grandest sand castle on
The back of a million crushed stones
My heart isn’t nearly as hard as they were
Chalk dust for you to walk on
Maybe you’ll carry it with you
In your clothes or in your hair,
In your eyes, in your lungs, in your mind
Like words in the sand, “I love you,” “(Heart), (Your name),”
Or “well, nothing lasts forever,” or stays the same,
Especially with the tide coming in,
So I think I’ll sit and wait for the rain.

Spoken Word Triptych

She Saw

You came home drunk
Again this morning
Seven AM and unable
to walk Your
friends supported
you to the bathroom
And you kissed the
toilet goodnight
In the evening you
didn’t Dare to do the
Same to me Not with
the lipstick on your
collar and under those
jeans So you
had Two too many
too many to think
straight She had
my eyes and they
caught Yours.

She Said

The usual She is a
Whore a Floozy
I hope she was
Worth every Second
Of course I screamed
I cried It’s your
Fault I died
You are no better
I pour your coffee
and I can’t smash
It against your head
I hope my eyes
were brighter in Her
face And I know
they were so after
all the obligated
anger all I
can think to say is
Nothing.

She Left

It was quick as
I could out the door
It’s been so long
I don’t even know how
To be alone Anymore
but now I can’t go back
to the house half
mine so I remember
what You said and there’s Paris at
Christmas and
the airport and a plane
waiting for me to find
Something else
Anything giving up
Everything but at the
terminal I still had my
eyes and they caught
Yours.

Damaged Goods

It must be this coldness that’s the worst
Thinking of you doesn’t even bring me sadness now
Maybe I’m no longer jealous of you
I’m sorry, I mean I’m happy for you
So now it’s eating, drinking, sleeping alone
Dreaming alone like I used to do
It’s better now
I’m sure it’s so much better now
But dear friend I hate how you now talk to me
Lately it’s just been all these unspoken apologies
And well, all this aggressive sympathy
It’s really starting to get to me
But you’re so alive for once in your life
Maybe one day you’ll be dead like me
Truth is this is no way to live
Skipping class or skipping town
Just always leaving your lovers behind
Going out to your grave
And always leaving flowers behind
Maybe growing up’s not what life is all about
Could be growing apart, maybe moving out
It’s like waking up every day
To work from nine to five
Forgive me but when are you
Going to have time to feel alive?
Well, I hope our lives didn’t pass us by
I hope the only loss was you and I
Cause I’m happy for you if you’re happy to be
More than you and I could be
Maybe you’ll feel like you know you always should
It’s hard to live when we’re just damaged goods

~Ben

Well I started writing a book...

Well I started writing a book.
It's about some kids like you and me.
But now it's like a goddamn biography
And I think that's just how it's gonna be
I mean that's just how it's gotta be.
And yeah I made some plans but they fell through
And all of your promises you didn't carry through
Even now I guess I still can't blame you
I guess that's how it's gonna be too.
That's when you told me that's how it's gotta be.
Well maybe now I'm starting to believe
That that's just how it's gonna be.
We drifted apart, maybe more than physically
And you said you were in love with me
You didn't have to use those words
Cause baby I can lie and say to any stranger
I can tell her how much I'm in love with her
And baby that's how it's gotta be,
I always thought I needed you
More than you needed me.

The Fight

Launch another tirade
Your verbal crusade
Cmon pile on those lies
You’re so psycho
Logical? Effing ineffable
Earthly unshakable
Unblinking insatiable
Ruthlessly immeasurable
Horrifically beautiful
You just can’t be ignored

How can you fight a war
You didn’t know you won
How can I quit a drug I
Didn’t know I was on?

Well, there’s no denying it
I’m yours I’m yours I’m yours
But I wish you would treat me like
You’re mine you’re mine you’re mine

So cmon blow your top
Pull out every stop
You know I’m good for it
Throw me around
Or push me down
You know I can take a hit
Pull my hair and bite my lip
You’re so aggressively passive
Violently violet
Flushing or blushing
If only hitting on you
Solved all my problems too

The Republican Army

We sang our anthems of the republican army
We wanted so bad to be revolutionary
It wasn't good enough to die for a cause
Now we had to fix every flaw
Well raise the flag boys
Line the soldiers up like toys,
Squares of ten by ten
These are the drums of martial men
Lady, all's fair in love and war
It's not important what it's for
You gotta be yourself in the land of the free
If you can’t be that what would you be?
Would you be me?

207/212

We took the ferry across the channel. We had come by the tunnel but now we were going over that tunnel. The weight of the water and our sorrows pressed down on the concrete tube and made it groan with the sighs of a hundred submerged years. I took your hand in mine. It was cold like it usually is. Your tears blew behind you in the wind. I couldn’t tell. It was raining. Your lips had turned blue. So had mine. The water behind us churned with white foam. The ferry had sprung a leak. It was only figurative. Still, the captain warned us. He said we had two more minutes to live in the memories of man. He jumped ship and swam to shore. It wasn’t far. I am a strong swimmer. You are fairly competent. We closed our eyes and fell into the ocean. You started to sink. Your memories, you said, were too much to lift. I took your hand and pulled you up. I couldn’t swim with the weight of my sorrows. My cigarettes fell out of my pocket. My sorrows were lifted. I pulled you to the shore. The seawall was tall and slick with the blood of the sea. The tank traps of a long forgotten war still sat on the beach. We sat on one and felt the ancient concrete give with the burden of our lives. The sun finally set. We blew smoke out of our mouths and watched the steam rise off each other. Your eyes were red from the salt. I kissed them. Your tears tasted like the ocean. It was cold. You were warm.



PROMPT: "the last five minutes in an experimental black and white french film"

Fridge Poetry

I must stop her rain
But under an urge
Hot peaches when you need
He
Is
Lazy
Honey

-------------------------------------

They may go but you say
Their bare skin
A shining knife
Was white as milk
Me and you
Easy
As
Iron

-------------------------------------

Tonguing aches like a sad picture
Goddess above drunk on purple petals
Men and boys ask please let me play
Only I smear the moment away
Someplace the TV still stares

Lies

Read me a story about all those years ago
And all those people who waited for beauty
Who prayed for the truth to come and never go
We’re still waiting; I’m still waiting to see

Tell me what you wanted to hear
Show me what I wanted to see
Show me that there’s nothing to fear
Say that’s what you want from me

Give me what you want me to hold
Tell me what you want me to know
Ask me to do whatever I’m told
Tell me the meaning of this show

I love your lies, tell me some more
I want to pretend everything’s alright
I wasn’t there, but I see you’re sore
Hey, tell me who won the fight

Tell me why I didn’t see you yesterday
The truth is I don’t want to know it
Don’t tell me you didn’t see I stayed
I waited for you. I kept the candle lit.

So tell me about all those
Who waited for absolution
Who stayed in the path they chose
To the final resolution

This is a fairy tale run through a sieve
All the truth has filtered through
I believe I want to believe
You believe that I believe you.

War Is Hell

Love is war, war is hell
So in the name of war
We should agree
To always
Always
Violently
Disagree

And we should walk around
With our hands on our guns
And we shouldn't give diplomacy
Another chance
And we should have hair triggers
On our bombs
And we should cross the borders
Every week
And we should point and click
Where the missile goes
And we should celebrate
The victories
And we should recover from
The defeats
And we should use bullets
Not words
And the world should know
How we feel

And when the war has ended
And we fight our peace
We should bandage
Our wounds
And bury our dead
Feelings.

Save Your Life

It was a long long time ago
When I told you that I loved you
And even now, even so
I'm afraid that it may still be true

And I know I tried to forget
Still I can remember when
It's been years since the day we met
And I've gotten old since then

And ever since then I drank deep
My mouth was filled with the taste of death
I always loved the illusion of sleep
And the longest drags were my breath

And to every girl who smiled at me
Thank you for helping me forget
Sometimes when I wish to be free
Thank you for adding to my regrets.

And to everyone who put me on the shelf
Yellow, brown, red, women all the same
They did nothing to me I didn't do to myself
So I don't have them to blame.

And god it's been a long long time
Since I saw you last, I wonder
How you're doing now between rhymes
And if you'll come and wander.

And how I hate those people who
Don't believe in love, those who don't live
Who denounce the lover's ways too
Who are so empty they have nothing to give

And all the broken hearted kids who
Dress in black and cry at night and write and write
The whiners, the fakers, and the cutters too
Will drink and smoke cigarettes until everything's right

And we'll find solace in the illusion of death
Even those who hurt deepest with the feeling I share
And it'll be so cold you can see your breath
And it'll be so white like the blankest stare

And those of us who hate life in our shame
Will love only love from the edge of a knife
Because the day love and life are the same
Is the day you find the girl who will save your life.

Daring to Be Forever

I see you staring back every time I look in the mirror
So here I am blowing smoke in your face again and staring into my eyes
The ones that were dull and brown but yours were so full of life
So much like the sea, always the most beautiful green
I was so much younger then when I was content to
Live like I just wanted to breathe and let it be enough
But now I feel like my arms are always so empty and I want to
Hold you closer than you would ever let anyone else

I haven’t been drinking again. I promised you I would stop.
And I quit smoking yesterday, I threw away my last pack
But here in the mirror where your ocean eyes should be
There are just mine and they’re so bloodshot and red.
And you were right, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. You said
You wouldn’t hurt me but you would be hurt yourself
But it hurts me already when I cough and rub my eyes
And in my chest it just aches and aches and aches

I called you and listened to your answering machine
And I carried on the most wonderful conversation
Where you answered all my questions and we left no mysteries
Unsolved and you told me you loved me and I said the same
And I told you about all those other women, the ones I might have loved
The girl with the brightest blonde hair or the girl with the saddest grey eyes
The ones that were so much like the storms and the rain she loved
The one I could have kissed in the dark for everyone to see

And you said you forgave me you forgave me you forgave me
And you took the cigarette from my lips and the bottle from my fingers
And you smiled at me and you said you liked me better when I
Wasn’t killing myself with the weight of all my sorrows
And I said I was sorry I was sorry I was sorry
To everyone and you and I said I’d give them another chance
And I said goodbye and I let your machine beep in vain
Because I won’t dignify it with how I feel.

And to that dial tone I told you it was good to talk to you again
And I thanked you for helping me understand one more time
I said I’ll see you soon, won’t you smile for me then?
I’ll introduce you to my latest lover, she’s nothing like you.
And you said you forgave me you forgave me you forgave me
And I don’t need to apologize anymore, I have nothing to be sorry for
You understood what it was like to be young and in love and desperate
To be young and in love your whole life or even daring to be forever.

Like a Runaway

I wish thinking of you made me happy like I pretend it used to.
And I wish it wasn’t feeling the pain in my heart that makes me feel alive.
I want to remember the times when I didn’t simply pass through the days.
And I want to be able to stop living like a drifter or like a runaway.
I used to want to just put all my money in my pocket and get away,
But now I just want to wrap my hand around something real.

I would like more than anything to just live and love and let it be enough
But I know it’s not, it’s not; it’s not satisfying me. I feel too empty.
I just want some certainty – I want to know some things are absolute truth
And I want some stability – I want to know what the future holds
I could do with clarity – I’ve always wanted to know what I want.
I need some answers; I could do with some goddamned meaning.

And I want to get rid of all these feelings that I have about you and everyone
I want to stop feeling like I am going to be sick, and I want to stop feeling
Like I don’t know if I should laugh or cry, and I don’t want to feel like I am dying
Whenever I kiss someone, and I don’t want to put you under a magnifier
It’s not funny, it’s not happy, it’s not tragic, it’s sincere, it’s laughing because it’s so sad.
It’s not love, it’s not regret, it’s pathetic, it’s the truth, it’s crying because it’s not funny.

Come on baby, laugh with me. Well, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
This is what we may call irony or coincidence or just a run of bad luck.
This is the thing I forgot to remember or remembered to forget
This is the final shred of evidence that convicts me and breaks my heart
These are the wages of honesty, of daring to think I could tell your truths
It’s what I get for hoping I could be honest enough for both of us.

Thinking back now all I can remember is the falsities of imagination
Thinking about you and me and “we” and what that could have been.
“The past is past” is the moral of this story, don’t dwell on before
But I was tired of being so sad all the time, I was ready to be happy.
But by that time it was all too late, and your bags were piled in the car.
So I thought that maybe if I stopped caring time would lose its meaning.

I hate how I can only appreciate these little pieces of sorrow.
I’ll listen to another sad song from another sad singer.
Because you know, I always thought tragedy sounded better,
And happiness always seemed so insincere.
It’s foolish of me to think sadness is the only true emotion
But it’s been so long that it’s the only one I can remember.

So love, let’s live like runaways. Let’s just get our money and get away.
Being alone isn’t so bad if you can find a way to be alone together.
And this time we’ll do it right, we’ll let there be no mystery
This time you’ll understand and you’ll show me that and this time
I won’t be so afraid, there will be nothing to hide or avoid
And we’ll bask in the truth, the truth, the freedom our truth brings

And you’ll laugh it up with me love, well, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
If you can’t laugh at yourself who can you laugh at?
I always thought you were so much like a suicide
Well come on baby, you were always my favorite way to die
And I promise you I won’t let it hurt too bad, it’s not too late
Don’t you know there are so many better ways to die?
Ha ha ha, goddamn. There was no better way to die.

Maybe It's Not What You Wanted...

Maybe it's not what you wanted, but these were all things you adore
Tell me what went wrong, what was it you were waiting for?

One more time we sink into the lessons of life and love, those hard earned nuggets of wisdom and the pieces of freedom we fought and bled for. There was no victory like the one we tasted at the end of that day, sitting together in the starlight with our slit wrists oozing salt water together onto the sand. It tasted like tears but it was dry as the powdered sugar we could still feel on the tips of our tongues, chalky and powdery and fake, the sickly sweet saccharine smell of chloroform in our nostrils. You were warm like the token body, simply there, a dead weight in my heart. You hung there as if you were in a hammock stretched leisurely in the trees, swinging gently in the breeze.

There was no defeat like the one I suffered that night, when I felt my past fall away as if it were a thousand pounds of iron. The manacles opened under your touch but still I feel them as if they were as tightly clasped around my wrists as they were on that summer day all those years ago, when a great monster of steel swept my youth and innocence away and replaced it with these chains, cold and red with the color of the rust in my blood. Her scars stretched across her smooth ankles for miles, cut like little smiles in her flesh, smooth as the gash in my knee - a demonstration of the difference between human beings and animals. Steak knives are simply for meat. That day she pulled her pant legs down over her ankles, I was a stranger to her again.

But you hung there in the hammock in my heart. The heartstrings quiver and creak with your unfamiliar weight. I test the supports and sit next to you and we lie there under the night sky and it is infinite. The stars stretch for miles above the red-purple clouds of the light night sky. We can see through them for the first time in years, and for a moment everything is as clear as when at birth our eyes are opened to the world, to the blood and the air and the noise and the white disinfectant expanse of sterility. I choke upon the words I could never say. I spit them out, a hoarse whisper issuing from my lips as the letters thud like lead into the concrete. You picked them up and gave them back, perhaps knowing I could not let them go, perhaps knowing they weren't for you. The address of the recipient is blank, a hastily scribbled mass of white paint covering the ink. We pick at it with our nails until the truth is revealed.

I gasp again for breath. The newborn babe cries as its lungs finally fill with air, and I fall to my knees, 'what have I done, what have I done.' You beg to be let go. I am holding you too tightly. I am hurting you. But it is no worse than I have been hurt. The knives and words and the blood are as fresh in my mind as they have always been, as real and as missing as the pieces of my heart. It was six stitches with a fishhook, they could always sew me back up. But the pieces I lost, they could put them on ice. I remember it was cold. At least, I shivered. I shook like you shook, with nerves and with anticipation. But I shook because it was as dry as the salt on my tongue, as cold as the coins on my eyes. The cross in your hands is no comfort. I can hold one too. I can bear it on my back for miles but I cannot be your savior.

When I broke my heart you broke yours with me. 'It matches,' you said, forcing a smile. But it didn't. Your half was larger, and you tried to cut yours straight down the middle. 'It matches,' you said. We traded. Left for left or right for right, an eye for an eye or a thumb for a thumb. I let you have the bigger half. But it was broken, and you broke yours with me, like your promises and your commitments. How many more would I take my hammer to, how many more would absence sap the warmth from and sharpen to a razor's edge? It's too small to halve again, but I cannot bear to take it back. I must simply give it away. Now I have nothing. 'What have I done, what have I done.' She was innocent, you were innocent, I was innocent. But we changed that. You threw it away in those dark nights. I traded it for wisdom. But she is innocent. It's funny how you used to be too, but only to me. We learned our bitter lessons about life and love, about war and hate and loss and sorrow.

They were our first lessons in irony, as rusted as our blood and as heavy as a square of iron forged in a liquid pool of fire, where the men who tend it and cut the squares free may singe holes in their new blue jeans. So we filled the void left by our happiness with replacements which may or may not be equal or better. You swallowed your medicine, your bitter pills you tried to fix yourself with. I gulped down the feelings, timeless and eternal, hoping to understand. Through it all, we all lay under the same stars, watching the same sky. The sun rose on you and set on me, and in those days you lived in the future and we believed we could grasp the future by the throat and claim it for our own, but it was wild and untameable, and it taught us lessons of its own. So we nursed our wounds and thought about these lessons as well. Life is most painful in reverse.

I held her like I held you in those final moments. We were different people then, always going places and staying in others. I couldn't let go. You had to push me away. We all forced our smiles. Life is better when you smile. But your bloody ghost cuts away my layers until there is only my longing left, and I can't smile with you watching me. I asked you if you remembered those nights together under the sky. The only memories you have now are by proxy. You remembered me. But where were you? Ah, it grows foggy. Above the clouds the stars are always there. But here on the ground it is red and purple and it swirls all around us, laughing and laughing and laughing. It sweeps away our uncertainty and the plans we made and the times we shared and our memories and we are born again, left once again to gasp for breath and let the hot air fill our tiny lungs, choking on our words and sorrows and being crushed by the weight of life and loss and love and the lessons we have to learn, those hard lessons we repeat until we understand.

~Ben

The Easy Way

I felt it was time to confess again, it’s scary
How it’s so easy to make these things up now
After a while sorrow’s second nature, the only thing real
It’s easier when you think, harder when you feel.

It’s funny how things always come around.
I always felt most comfortable kissing in the dark.
They say not to trust a girl who doesn’t close her eyes
But it’s all the same at night, cause neither do I.

See, there’s nothing I could do
To make you more modest
You’ve never been less than yourself.
And there’s nothing you could say
To make me less honest
I’ve always been true to myself.

And I always longed to feel it that way
That kind of truth you see in the love notes
The teachers took up and read aloud, the ones
That you laughed at but hurt for at the same time.

You know I wrote you so many of those.
But there’s only so much that rhymes with
“I love you” or “I know this much is true,”
You know, besides “I found someone new.”

See, there’s not much I can do
As detached and faraway as I am
You know what distance does to me.
But there’s not much else I can say
I still want to be in love with you
But we know what time does to me.

I always appreciated the simplicity
Of taking the easy way out, since you know
I’ve gotten so acquainted to it in my shame
You and her and her and her always did the same.

So I don’t know what to call what I’ve got now
I’ve always thought tragedy sounded better
But this could possibly be so good for me
It feels so strange to perhaps finally feel happy.

Jazz Response

Saw Tom Wolfe, Hank Lazer, and Chris Kozak a couple weeks back
Thought maybe I could be a beat poet too.
Could hang out in coffee shops just like my dad
Wear a black turtleneck in an old black ‘n white
Sip black coffee
Listen to some Coltrane, Count Basie
Maybe...
Some Dizzy Gillespie?
It’s not the same at Starbucks nowadays.
Paying too much to be “alternative.”
Let’s listen to those horns
And it will…
Maybe it will sound
Just like the boogie woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred.
Isn’t that right, daddy?

Hammer the Nails

Baby you and me under that purple
Orange blue red white sky
We lay in the grass and watched
Our lives pass us by
There were dogs and cats
And sailing pirate ships
There were friends and
Our former lovers
But baby it’s only current lovers
That matter at all to me

Nothing broke my heart more
Than the sound of you not breathing
There next to me, we missed out
On the glamour of Seventeenth Street
Where the pretty girls walk by
And you aren’t among them
I could have picked you out from the crowd
And I could have been “Dying all day
In thousands of little ways”
But I was tired of the charade

So it was the motion of our hands
Waving good bye to the past
That closed the lid on this box
Say we godspeed to your earthly remains
Yes, godspeed you across that sea
Or into that black afterlife after me
And I hesitated to write the final
Word of this book, because
There won’t be an epilogue.
Hammer the nails.