i'm hard on my stuff:

cracked soles, cracked screens,

fissures in relationships, chips in dishes,

seams with rips, outdated firmware, CDs that skip

i've got burn holes in my sheets,

a thousand scratches on my CDs

my laptop casing has a dent

the stuck keys are a non-event

this is what i'm working with

when it's a struggle to exist

scarred kneecaps, stubbed toes,

chipped teeth and a patched heart,

a body like all my books

that fall apart

(bent at the spine)

but it's fine

they're just well-read

(so the covers fell off)

and i didn't punch hard

(the drywall's just soft)

isn't this love?

i think i ripped the tag off

I was eighteen when

I replaced my brother with a dog

and my mother with a girlfriend

who would soon be my ex-wife

By 21, I had become my own god

with my heart in a shrine

and a hole in my chest

I thought love was like

saline salt solution:

If it doesn't burn a lot

it's not working

Until 26, I valued people

for what they could do for me

and people loved me for who

they thought I could be

instead of who I actually was

At 27, my ego died alone in a bed

along with my fear

of dying alone in a bed

Why does it matter

if it's how I was born

or by the grace of god?

This year, I said goodbye

to the way I used to love

and see you later

to the lich lurking inside me

i'm sick of being subverse, you see, I want it reverse

you get what you pay for and you won't be reimbursed

this isn't coded verse, another fifth grade curse,

or more Garbage lyrics of who had it worse

but if life's like a game, and pain's the competition

how have i had it this hard, but i'm hardly even winning?

if my sins are forgiven, well I still ain't done sinnin

how have i lived all these years, but i still ain't done livin?

it just goes on forever, til you drop dead, or give in

til you buy in, or sell out, til the thing pile run out

there's no ETA, whether devout or with doubt, a nonspecified amount

of drama, of trauma, of please, no, i don't wanna

but it never stop from keep happening,

in an era they call The Slackening

but it's the age of anxiety, bad irony,

online piracy, and never fucking silently!

come join my millenial dynasty, where we don't allow sobriety

or any right to privacy, but it's not like society

it's just a sibling rivalry, us against psyschiatry

and we'll be what we're prescribed to be,

and from our cage, we'll call it free

but it's no use, like any alien could deduce,

it's animal abuse, walking ourselves like a dog on a noose,

with two screws loose, swallow poison, but call it booze

and talk about the brews, the bruise? Our dues?

And to mind your p's and q's! the whole world is a ruse,

that we don't get to choose, like it was written by dr suess

introducing, The Big Confuse, it speaks only in kazoos,

and eats silver spruce, it preys on existential excuse

and dresses only in chartreuse, but i heard it graduated from syracuse

it was in the news, or one of my so called breakthroughs

about who i'm supposed to accuse

of this unintelligent design, whoever made it, didn't refine,

before they spun it out in time, a picture of artistic of crime

a species peaked, must now decline, and we'll all be disatsified

because life is traumatic, like we're all flowers in god's attic

with no mothers, fucking our own brothers, made up of numbers,

dithering away in cement structures, looking for the meaning of life

in Rutgers, and bad instructors, yeah we're all suckers

just looking for a nipple to latch, a feeling to catch,

and a bandade to patch, all this mismatched suffering,

no bluffering, cause what i've been discovering,

is no matter breed or coloring, we all need a little mothering

This is a rap for the words

I never spit

An ode to the crap

I never shit

And here’s some more bull

I don’t want to admit

Go ahead, get the sharpie

Write it up on the list:

Number one, this whole,

No touch, fuck, just talk,

Well it’s a load of

Stink, stank, and stonk

But I willbchase, beg, and stalk

Before I pray, take, or walk

Because I wrote our names in chalk

And when it rains, guess it’s my fault?

Maybe it was just how I was

Taught

Alright, you win, here,

I’m caught

Number two I’m sick

of always being the person

who always has to come first

and say the best verse

And--

Sleep in the middle,

And be the one to burst

Everyone’s bubble,

I’d like it reversed

Where everyone’s trouble

and I’m just coerced

And I’m sick of trying my best

on every occasion

Like, How many more ways

can I stereotype Asian?

Numbers three, four and five,

Guess I’ll finally admit

I’m probably the one

who destroys all my relationships

Like take chainsaw

Like take it all off

Had a brain cough,

Your skin is so soft

And I’m back to wanting you again

acting like i’m zen

Back to wanting all my friends

wanting to pretend and

play house,

and have a play-spouse

and when i’m ready

i’ll build a playhouse

no boys allowed!

three ain’t a crowd

just a threesome

just a heart strum

graduated top in my class

of bitches who love their mum

unrequited love alum

lower than your chewing gum

six seven and eight

are all three of my first dates

and id get into it

but you were probably there

and id get into it

but i’m sure you probably won’t care

So take a tango with the last two fucks

That wouldn’t live

And resuscitate my heart

That won’t

Give you up

Let you down

Turn around and

Press you like

a flowerbook collection

Like a morningtime erection

Like I’ve never felt rejection

Attending 2016, Fuckboy convention

Lost, like your last connection

Like I’m no Direction

Too bad I wasn’t named Perfection

I guess I’ll write it in this section,

Sincerely yours,

Your last reflection

It is your soul, where darkness sleeps

Not outside, between your sheets

where it feeds and it can prey

on all the feelings from your day

That weren’t pleasant, weren’t wanted:

envy, shame, six shades affronted

Love like lava, too hot to touch

Love: a weakness, excuse, a crutch

No legs to stand, your balance, thwarted

An image, of yourself: distorted

is what you see, and what you get

Like purgatory, god’s lost bet

The bed you’ve laid, of disappointment

is saved by only god’s anointment

You wait alone, a helpless pupil

unbound, alone, free from scruple

Frozen and unmoved, as seasons pass

the snow to weeds, from leaves, to grass

It’s in the rain--your transformation

far beyond man’s temptation

You see the sky and come undone

for every star is someone’s sun

A reason for the search to cease

and in that knowledge, inner peace

I met a monster when I was small,

It laid an egg inside my skull.

When it hatched, as most eggs do,

I graduated from feeling blue.

And as time passed, one day I woke

It’d grown a mouth from which it spoke:

"You have a choice,"

It has no eyes, no face, My voice:

"There are two paths that you may take,

one is real and one is fake."

It said, "I'll eat up all your darkness,

but you must wear me like a harness."

It always knew just what to say,

"It doesn't hurt," and, "You're okay."

It was then, the marks appeared,

Cuts, and bruises, bloomed by fear.

And what it said was never worse:

It told me, "No one loves you first."

Years passed as they're often wont,

And in my heart there formed a knot.

It followed me to school and back.

My spine weighed down, about to crack.

My teacher asked, "Are you okay?"

But I had no words left which to say:

"I'm scared, alone, I live with fear,

A monster holds me forever dear."

With tears, I searched my bed, the door.

I told myself it was no more!

And as I dry heaved on the floor,

It returned for another score:

"You are not loved you are not needed,

You took the monster home to feed it."

It found me in my dreams, that night.

Out of my mind, but in my sight.

Among allies it came alive.

There was no place it could not thrive.

"Their love is lies, their words would float,

for what you are is but a joke."

It hid in trees, cracks in the floor.

I could not take it anymore.

"There were two paths, and you chose one

Hidden from the brightened sun.”

“Free of hurt, The path less beaten,

Free of morals, You could not be eaten."

Deep within my head I found,

The King of Darkness wears no crown.

It took two mirrors,

for me to see.

I left the monster,

But It never left me.

early mornings

the world sits tipped

stars black as diamonds

ceiling stripped

and in the dark

my morals trip

no moonshine guide

lunancy’s trick

air hazy soft, like

two buds, nipped

almost as good as

Twilight’s script

here’s to Us, this

relationshit--

the street fights

beneath street lights

over last rites

over limelight

the meters ticked

but never paid

the morals, fixed

but never spayed

and in this hour

it’s hard to say

exactly from which path

I’ve strayed

I hate the way some like to say,

"Man high school was some bullshit!"

Like, "I never learned anything useful!"

Because, yeah, maybe high school was like,

ninety percent a waste of my time,

but, still--

There are some things I learned in high school like:

faggot, bitch, loser, nerd--

dyke!

And how to study hard and try my best

(syke!)

Like how to cheat and cram every test

(right?)

Secondly, I learned to function without rest

and exactly how not to hoard stress!

or covet control

Waiting beneath burned bridges,

charging tolls

Like, goddamn, have I always been this

con-troll-ing?

Another skill added to my repertoire

is how to never fall for the girls

who can play guitar

And how to cry myself to sleep

in thirty minutes or less

And how to hate how I look

regardless of how I dress

Never learned how to pay a bill

or cash a check

But definitely learned how to lie convincingly

pretend I'm sick

In order to shirk responsibility

Have I spotted passive aggression?

Or am I detecting a little hostility?

Thirdly, or whatever number it is that we've reached

I learned how to never practice whatever I preach

Got myself straight A's in hypocrisy

Without high school where would I even be?

It's the place that taught me how to be where I'm not

’Cause skipping classes was the pre-req

for starting smoking the pot

And it's not like my brain

wasn't already beginning to rot,

So instead of "just say no,"

Let's all just say, "why not?"

Another thing I should definitely mention,

Is there's probably, almost always a way

to get an extension.

On any hairstyle, deadline, due date,

or pregnancy scare,

Hell, I graduated high school

and I was barely there!

Oh did I forget to mention that life isn't fair?

I'd cry about it,

but high school taught me not to

I'd get high about it,

Cause highschool taught me that, true.

I'd lie about it,

but it would be so see through

So instead I'll try to doubt it

and begin life new--

Just as soon as I finish dwelling

on how I dwelt

on every single feeling

my heart ever felt

And how every single feeling

felt like the first time

And how the first time I had sex

felt like the worst time

Another great thing

high school teaches

is how to dodge and/or catch

emotional leeches

Oh, and,

How to gossip and

get away with it

And how to miss class

and make a day of it

Or,

how to grow up

and lose your way a bit

And it's unfortunate

that what I learned last

Is how as we age

time passes remarkably fast

Then before you know it

--wait!

There are actually quite a few more

of things I know now

I didn't before

But most importantly--

Oh geeze, how'd I forget?

Is how to graduate and go directly into debt!

So maybe for me it ends

with lessons learned

Or maybe for me it ends

with bridges burned

And maybe it didn't teach me my ABCs

but it definitely taught me how to catch all my Z's

No matter the surface, temperature, or light

and how learning has little to do

with how bright

but instead, with how quickly

we learn to adapt

to a prison that feels like it's under attack

And--

I'd love to fight back about it,

but high school taught me not to.

So instead I’ll forget about it

’Cause highschool taught me that, too.

My best friend

is a belt,

it taught me everything,

I ever felt,

gave me every consequence

I ever dealt

At least I'm flying,

with twelve red welts

Hey, my best friend

is a noose.

It taught me never tie

a knot too loose,

and to never ever

call it abuse.

At least I'm crying,

that's my excuse.

Yeah, my best friend

is a razor.

Taught me to pray,

my silver savior.

And to never give

a single favor.

At least I'm trying

"How can you blame her?"

So my best friend

is my pain.

It taught me only give

what I can gain,

and to always, sure,

pretend I'm sane.

At least I'm lying,

behaving tamed.

Guess my best friend

is a tonic.

Taught me any substance

can become chronic,

and to never, ever

give up on it.

At least I'm styling

my own sonnet

Well my best friend,

must be sex.

Taught me feelings

I never flexed,

and to always, never,

fuck an ex.

At last I'm satisfied

Are you impressed?

Yeah my best friend

is all this stuff.

Taught me never lie

when I can bluff,

and to never, ever

give something up

At least I'm dying,

half empty cup.

Glad my best friend,

isn't me.

Taught to disbelieve

that which I see,

and should I fall

and break my knees,

At least I'm buying

into disease.

I'm sure my best friend

must be dead.

Taught me to think

Without my head

and to never ever,

bleed in bed.

At least I'm not shitting

where I am fed .