(0288) the silence of a stare pt. 2

they know facts and fiction make for good television friction, and they know short-term memory loss is the result of escapism. make that tree start to grow with holy water and watch as it bears the fruit of delusion and patriotism. they give you one choice. it's an easy decision.

i'll cut the throats of their lost intent if and when we need more money to help pay the rent.
they keep going with a bullet already in their head, and their eyes are closed even though they're not dead.
i'm coughing, and i'm cold, but i'll leave you alone.
the dream isn't dead. it's a voice in your head.
the bomb is the size of the sun. let's run to the nearest pretty place and bring a gun.

she peaks out from the ground while reading a book to herself, lost in the middle of a crowd.
he's in the sky, and he's lost in a cloud so he plays his best music, but it makes no sound.

all was innocent for a few seconds, but the wreck didn't leave survivors.

they were just like us. ashes scattered in the wind. dehydrated in a desert of lies.

but that one sunday afternoon was a blur. we drank lemonade and played in sprinklers.

i was in love with life. all i saw were vivid colors, and explanation never mattered.

and now, what's left? beautiful you... unknown.

(0287) offramp

captive soul in her own world. just her and her cynical remarks. my best friend destroys the reason and then holds the answer hostage. they were beautiful in their time, but now they're pictures that don't make sense.

one drink and say goodbye. she's her own excuse now. not mine.

our words stay true in death and only multiply. face of starvation, and i shake it off. let the reverb find it's way back around and stay here, hovering in obscurity. peel back the layers and clone the genetic code for something better. someone better.

i wait in the adjacent section, and they hide their identity. don't agree? you will. change of plans, and we left the phone off the hook. evolution is devolving into a mess, and they tell us help is on the way.

take their profits and feed them to the hungry. no... make them hungry and let them slowly die. it was their fault. they already did. the world was just laughing. take the offramp and don't forget to recycle.

what's this thing called succeeding? i just call it breathing.

(0286) the fault lines

wake up. wake up. no one will save us.
breathe in. breathe out. same in. same out.
two colors dreaming just leads to what you're seeing.
we break on the fault lines because seven billion people will get it wrong every single time.

wake up. wake up. these people are attention sluts.
cancel your subscription. don't pay for fucking fiction.
give up. give up. realize there's no such thing as luck.
it's a work-in-progress. there's no need in trying to impress.

wake up. wake up. we can never - we can never have enough.
meet me halfway. i'll see you in the shadows of your day.
jesus loves you, especially when you're deluded too.
cost of living... everyone's gotten tired of giving in.

pencil writes without my hand. this isn't another plot to become the modern man.

somewhere, there's a sea of doubt... and you'll find it in the absence of sound.

based on your frozen face, the density of the pixels are equal to the interest rate.

(0285) my painted rhyme

the explanation was all you needed. the gun you're holding, you could never shoot. preceded by faith was only a simple premonition. when you admit your guilt is when i'll admit the truth.

now that my memories are dead to me, maybe i should convert my currency.
i try to learn a different song to sing. patience becomes a necessity.
everyone's lost in their fantasies, and i'm dying for eternity.
i've got to show the world that i can breathe. i should never have learned to read.

pretending that i still exist. to understand is not to hug and kiss.

we're waiting on a wasted chance while speaking in an unseen glance.

bending over backwards to feel and finding out it wasn't real.

someone isn't far behind. the future is my painted rhyme.
if only we could travel time without having to use our sight.
when did life become a prize? why has all this water dried?
sending out a random signal through the sky, and i don't know the reason why.

i'm in a circle that i can't escape, but then the morning comes, and i'm awake.

look in the mirror when i fade away. what the fuck was i supposed to say?

(0284) breathing in the gutter

time is slipping through your fingers, and medicine just makes you more unaware of all the dead-end satisfaction that's permeating your nightmares. concentration takes the outer world and tends to throw it all away, and while working in the corporate factory, your senses stay numb throughout the day. entertainment is of little consolation. it can be endless, there's no doubt. the news is keeping us informed of all the things we should live without, and the best of friends are busy. they're trying too hard to strike a pose. insecurity is feeling threatened by ambitious plans and an open road.

truth was derailed by a free capitalistic market, and babies are crying in the middle of the street. the vultures circle around their prey and enjoy feeling accomplished and elite. they watch over the gates of their pyramids while profiteering from their greed just as the salvation army is salvaging what they can to help people eat. the church collects your hard-earned tithes in exchange for your imaginary soul. they'll give you eternal life after death as opposed to what's supposedly below. all the fiction of the world can't teach you how to think with a rational mind, and the instant you feel empathy, be prepared to be left far behind.

emotional blackmail is performed by everyone. it doesn't matter who you think you are. you'll try to write it off as a business expense, but the accounting would be too hard. the incessant need for attention is only outshadowed by fear. crossed the finish line to find instead that the end's not even near, and while you're trying to figure out which direction is for you, the water is not yet hot enough to boil so let it soak on through. an electric current is consigned here, but i'm the only one who knows. dust and people gather as the widowed lady grows old. they were breathing in the gutter so things must be alright. if you're going nowhere, don't forget to turn off the light.

he leaves his former self in a vaccuum of self-pity and destitution. pretty faces linger everywhere, and they're not offering cold solutions. he dances around his feelings and offers up words that sink in quicksand. they know it's love, but they're not sure what that means in the age of modern information on demand. their love makes me feel nauseous because i can't understand my twisted fate. it's impossible to imagine. it's my excuse for arriving late. conversation was a phantom that could easily pass for a grain of salt, but the hospital stay was at my expense. of that, there is no fault.

piece together what you can of a silent movie with no known ending and meet me up in the static airwaves of all the things i keep pretending. i feigned sickness to make it out alive; to assure myself of another day.

i made it out alive, but i still don't know what to say.

(0283) intensity

the delusion has filled up its appetite, and melody has rotted away. while the young can't see through their pretense as their innocence was never there, the unstoppable can't be disregarded because change doesn't come at a natural pace. age breaks the mirror with apathy, and the subtleties are all we have left. blame the other person in front of you while you stand in line and wait your turn... we've all been inflicted with inner discord and lack the intensity that we crave, but as long as i'm paying in virtual currency, i'll never have to unlearn.

trade up your costs for your memories, and don't drive until you're fully awake. the movements that carry me closer are the same ones that push me away. fixed all your problems using denial and coincidence in spite of your actions, but in transparency, you'll fail like the rest of them. you'll look to your faith for what you wanna see and hear as a ton of bricks lays waste to all that is near. perceive lost blood as a wasted effort just because the wind decided to change. weather dictates your mood in the same way that i've learned to adapt. people are dying like flies, but then maybe that's all that we are. you'll stand in the middle with your cellular phone and chirp like the birds of disease.

car crash leaves me speechless in the echo of what i wish i could say. dream of a love for eternity and dream of death at the end of each day.

this air is swallowing the sea.
this water is making me feel green.
this moment is not unlike the rest, but i've never had to pass a harder test.
i listen close while moving down the road,
and i start to turn as soon as i see the curve.

it's all the same.
it's all the same.
it's all the same,
and i haven't changed,
but i feel changed.

(0282) filtered time-lapse

and i can only hope that my eyes will hold their focal point.

split in a filtered time-lapse, the mind is a horrible control.
we don't have the proper perspective because we will never grasp ahold...
of all of the things we wish
to know.

shared experience is a prerequisite. it's something you'll never be able to prescribe
so look through a different lens because it just takes way too much time...
and we'll
never arrive.

i stayed up all night and day
just to mix a little time.
i stayed up all night and day
just to try to unwind.

i'm beginning to recognize the past. i'm beginning to recognize my demise.
remember the things that we lost and remember there's no difference in the sky.
hear our voices
as they rise.

dust is to equal us out, and equations are only made to distract.
they were left to be buried in mass graves with their vanished souls ever so intact.
the question is will you be
covering up your own tracks?

i stayed up all night and day
just to see what i could find.
i stayed up all night and day
just to straighten out my mind.

(0281) sign language in irrational time

wrecked in the morning, my car gives no warning of its slow demise.
i looked over a cloud, and i heard no sounds as you went racing by.

gone. like the person in the center of the picture frame. i was wrong.
i never made sure anybody was safe
from the desolation in the air.
all this time, i just enjoyed pretending that you cared.

brother's an asshole; i stand in the shadow of his holiness.
he reads none of the books, but he's got all the looks. they think he's perfect.

dead. that's what she told me out of nowhere that day... but i never wept.
everything must surely end, they say.
i try to tell myself i should be grateful.
but what, am i supposed to now believe in angels?

lost in my dream, i stay asleep like a fiend because it feels nice.
i dreamt of love like it was going out of style and didn't want to think twice.

fake. what you make believe is not how it is... at least not for me.
impulses only lead you to stray from happiness.
seems like i'm always looking over my shoulder.
i guess this is how you're supposed to think as you get older.

he performs using sign language in irrational time.
there are some types of beauty you'll probably never see in your life so come on. get high.

blood. taste the rainbow as it arcs from the sky. let it flood.
first one drowned in the attic is the rotten egg. shall we die? .. now or later?

(0280) functional dissonance

every city was racing you, but they can't fit inside your shoes. the distant fear is deep inside my eyes, but they'll know me after my demise.

it wasn't how we planned it out. it wasn't how we thought it'd sound.

cast on your shadow and let it hang. those fifteen minutes are still caught up in my brain.

filtered through this radio and somehow washed away like rain, but there's no stopping vertigo when it makes you look under a train. when i start over, there's nothing left. take it up and pull it down. let me know what you have kept.

books and words won't show you life.
failed the test, but i never had to hide.

(0279) folding halfway

i was absorbed in my skin, and she was absorbed into all those dreamy fiction stories.
maybe that's why i should've known better, and maybe that's why it quickly became so hopelessly boring.
the three years that we knew each other - what a waste of time and endless amounts of money.
it gave a whole new meaning to defective by design while we were both under the influence of different things.
we spent our time alone in our heads while living together in the same empty house.
a tragic comedy of what happens when you dream big but don't have the desire to work it out.

they're looking neither backwards nor forwards. they're looking at a television or computer screen.
with a hook in their mouths, they swim right along until they've been sufficiently entertained and put to sleep.
in their dreams, they make love to movie stars, and when they wake up, they can't seem to even get out of bed.
another year. another fixation fulfilled in order to ignore your own head.

(0278) visionary sellouts

distant in your pretense, beautiful, meet me in a blue sky. for that, i've got nothing but my time to waste. september leaves me in a starry-eyed dream place - hypnosis where your eyes can't help but come undone. adjust the sequencing of my frequency for the immediate response of silence and disinterest, but thanks to a friend, i can't forget the second law. sometimes, i like to pretend things are just the way they seem.

innocent was always just a vivid summer day in the early '90s chicago of my youth. a million sounds carry me far away until i feel lost, but it doesn't matter as long as it's the truth. i'll only go to sleep when the time is right to. there are no shades of gray inside my head. the only surfaces i never seem to stick to are dissolving quickly in my sense of dread.

forget everything you've ever learned and start holding on to the things you love and need. undress your secret in the back of this vague institution and cut your time signature for more melody. we're visionary sellouts, and we're free for the taking. we might be faking, but you'll never tell either way. gone away are my fast creative reflexes. here to stay are doubts that serve to lead me astray.

money is tight, and we'll probably have a few more seizures. let's try to break even on this false perception. fate is not concerned with financial obligation. please speak up because i have faulty reception. identity mistaken for what was never even offered. confusion might as well just be my wife. my art will never distinguish between what's real and what's obsession. always remember to use a gun if you can't find a knife.

what was hungry is now starved to death. what was winded is now out of breath.

static electricity has brought us this far, but i wouldn't count on any more shooting stars.

(0277) reconstruction landscape

sheets cover our bodies. gotta make ourselves alive now. breathe into my broken lungs air that suffocates me somehow. the clock just hangs on your blank face until you're passing out unnoticed. when will i sever the silence? is it supposed to stay? when will i ever notice these words you'll never say? cut the phonelines, close the windows, close the blinds, and remember to remind yourself to stay calm.

hemorrhaging in full effect. gotta keep ourselves alive now. creeeping thoughts come creeping in. am i still lost? and will i ever be found? this parasite, like a blinking light, keeps us awake all day and night. reconstruct the outer limits. don't be afraid to stray. reconnect the vital circuits. times like these are not the times to pray. turn the car on, fasten your seatbelt, check your mirrors, and remember to remind yourself to stay calm.

--

understand there's no demand except your demand to fully understand all. cardiac arrest, and i go numb as little holes are punctured by the surgeons. imaginary soul is found for all to see and to believe because a real god has no need to intervene nor to be seen.

and i'll happily await my turn without fear nor concern about being eternally tortured and burned.
it's a scandal and a myth so please, let the court now be adjourned.

--

the lights conceal my pain.
a nervous breakdown from within
has got me turned around and found me in this sedative.

she hides away from me.
an apparition in disguise.
i look away too soon while secretly sharpening my eyes.

i mistake myself for you
my eyes are certainly not blue.
with resistance, i look away.

the strangest thing is not the fact that i've been here before.

rather, it's the endless trail of nothing that's led me to this door

where i'll stand here in the fog of all that helps keep me distracted and hungry for more.