When the record doesn't sound right anymore

Smoke free for almost a week
still feel the haze
unfiltered
and the sunlight plays in it
like sprinklers

Watch your eyes
it's almost all i care about
the spark is there

Is it there in mine too,
or just the exoskeleton
of a life already shed

Don't smile at me
i'll just smile back
I'm a mirror now
but of what you don't want to see

A light bulb surrounded in a cage
is never shattered
the dirty concrete floor
is never swept
and so goes Love
unclean and never broken
but that doesn't sound right

I asked her, "doesn't this sound weird to you?"
the song was off
was the night off as well?
she said yes, and gave me a look
but it was too dark to see her eyes

And now i wonder if I'm seeing things
and hearing things
that aren't there

Being interesting is difficult when I'm so far down the list my name is on side b: I'm a B Side

It's a struggle just knowing you
sometimes
ya know
you know everyone

But you don't really know me
I haven't told you
all that much

Does it remotely peak your interest?
I doubt it, I doubt it

The sermon of the couch

Oh,
how unhappy are the lovelorn
for theirs is an empty heart

They seek
and do not find

They knock in vain
for no one is there to answer

They drink and drive
and steal and cheat
and dishonor themselves and fight
for what optimism they hold dear

They are the gnats around coffee grinds
masters of head colds
and losers of decency

Theirs is the couch,
theirs is a computer chair
and lower back pain

Theirs is uncertainty
the same uncertainty we all face
love lorn or not
but they face it alone

The ones without who have so much to give
the child at Easter who cannot find a plastic shell
They are the unloved and beloved

You cry for them
your heart aches for them
and they do the same

for themselves.

Of myth and man

The myth is so much better
than the man
open your eyes
and remove all doubt
don't let this fool speak

Don't mistake the moisture in my eyes
for sympathy
you'll find it's only
contact solution

Let me be
when you find yourself in times of trouble
let me be

So much has been made of the thinness
of my accomplishments
the nature of my being
It's a cop out to say
i'm just a man

Truthfully i'm something less than that sometimes
more of a corpse these days
disgusting flesh
rotted from the inside

Can't you feel the fetid nature
of my words
my actions

I'm not acting
but floundering

Raspberry joints

Little satellite
trajectory true
but lying to yourself
this long elipse will slowly
drop you into the atmosphere

Burn you,
feel the heat
red nosed and runny
don't smile for your end
Like a little boy on a bicycle
running his handlebars
into the grass
while his savior runs a few feet behind

The excitement without training wheels
lead - very shortly - to complete loss of control
like the satellite
sucked by the molasses of gravity
the soup of shame
an angle of anguish

Little boy save yourself
every decision you make now
may only lead you
closer to
the dirt
and scraped knees

Raspberry joints
that sting for days