The Wizard

Mark, Mark, King of the Dark

The trauma and drama of everyone’s parts

My “Child”, my “Sleeper”, my “Empty” one, too

It all came from your mouth, so it has to be true

It’s phenomenal really, the way you can place

A life into context without seeing her face

And soon just a thought from the “wisdom” you hold

Might as well come from Jesus; we are that desperate to mold

And simply like that, we give up our will

To use our own voices; we just take the damn pill

So believed to be safe, I eased my guard down

Until seeing I was the subject, while you wore the gown

But I only saw because I watched from the side

The favorites you coddled and studied with pride

And in not being one, it was easy to see

That you simply don’t care about clients like me

Perhaps it was just that I’m not mold-able

Since you really can’t brainwash a mind when it's full

Already lodged with my own core beliefs

You may break down the door, but they won’t ever leave

I could give you credit for being someone

Who established a place that helped me become

A person with health, who can live without ED

Who now wants to live life and not simply be dead

But I was used like the rest for the “research” you plunder

When research is theory, and we’re people, not numbers

Still, maybe your intentions were once genuine

But if so, that was long before your ego stormed in

You see, the brilliance you’ve shown the naïve, it’s an art

But brilliance like that isn’t "Self", it’s a part

So don’t ever forget, despite what they’ve bought

You will never be infallible --- you’re not the son of God.

A Look Into The Vaults: "The Song My Mom Doesn't like" (circa winter/spring of 2009)

The sun has returned

But I’m still in the dark

The voice in my just crumbles and cracks

And the shoes on my feet are coming apart

And the ground underneath is now falling down

‘Cause I can’t put words to the things that I feel

But I’m still out of context after all these years

And no one believes when I say that I’m stuck       

And all I perceive is gonna fuck me up

It’s always been too much

And with everything that’s always going down

If only I could run from this stupid fucking town

Or maybe we might finally all implode

When the scientists release their man-made black hole

There’ll be nothing left as far as I can see

There’ll be nothing for me to feel for all eternity

And with no one left for me to disappoint  

The crushing weight of fear and shame will finally dissipate

'Cause even the people who love me the best

Don’t have the strength to pull me from this mess

And even the friends I love more than myself

Sometimes just make me lonely as hell

So maybe I want an extension of me

To drive myself mother-fucking bat-shit crazy

Or maybe I’ll be better of alone

Living in the mountains and dying when I’m old

‘Cause the sun has returned

But I’m still in the dark

The voice in my still crumbles and cracks

And the shoes on my feet are coming apart

And the ground underneath has now fallen out.

A Bitter Truth

if I wasn't chasing angels
I might have a look around
maybe find a place to settle
'til I'm six feet underground

but this black hole, it's hungry
"you know it's bottomless"
it rages like a snarled sea
  now on the brink of vortex

still hiding in my metaphors
it's where I can pretend
that there's something universal here
and it translates sentience

but if you can't just sit and be alone
a bitter truth, I heard you say
the flock of birds that took you in
will break and fly away

but hey, buck-up, kid---be your own!
when ya' gonna stay?
you know that no one see's you lead
your lonesome day parade

No Shadows Without Light

tired of teetering between dead ends and a death wish

I slipped, or simply let go; accepting my useless fear of the abyss

free-falling, more forceful than a freight-train and faster than space flight
I studied existence in slow motion
frame-by-frame; bludgeoned by proof 

that there never was a shadow without light

I landed deep in heavy-water 
that was nothing but dark

like the absence of photons following a blinding light

there is an immediate, yet brief moment when all details fade to black

 

before any hint of subtle shapes are discernible

visual reality must sometimes wait to exist

as your pupils expand their scope for light

it rushed me towards the surface 
like undertow in reverse

I was not given time to drown

I emerged from the unnerving world below

outside of all imagination, the sun is the only thing

we can still see with our eyes closed

you know, it gets so bright sometimes that constricting my eyelids into thickly ribbed curtains is still not enough to block out the light of day

and it makes me question the instinct to try

just because you don't sink, well...
it doesn't mean you're a swimmer 

but if you can believe "out of sight, out of mind"

then you'll float on your back and forget how it ever felt
to fear what lives under water

with no need to care that dry land is rare

 you won't try to see where you might be

I simply drifted

dreaming of a place where I might not have to

protect my metaphysical fantasies from the sun

where I might one day bury my face in the sand

so that I can go ripping through the wind-torn sky behind my eyes

spinning and dizzy

wanting nothing more than to dive face-first into this tender belly

with a force I can only pray will break a choked throat

I will fix and fill your holes.

It's Time

The first of many old songs and/or poems written throughout my life that I am finally beginning to archive.
This was a song I wrote just a few months before going to treatment for the first time in June of 2009:

I don’t sleep much at all, it seems
this time of year

I don’t speak much these days, ya' know
well, I’ve got my reasons

'least I don’t drink like I did in the past
so I’ll call it even

but these days, they're gonna haunt me
‘til I find something more to believe in

you know, we call it love 
when we make somebody happy

and we call it out 
just to make our silly-selves sane

‘cause we are all guilty 
of forgetting our own advice

but we hand it out just the same

though once in a while 
we know what we should do

and while doin’s never easy
it's better than thinkin’ you really ought to

still I’m not certain 
that I'll ever really pull through

but I’ll do my best 
and I guess that’s always been true