Fever Pitch

I never did measure up to my potential.
Adults always made sure to tell me so.
Why would I want to? I never understood.
Everything was always about the future.

Well the future is here and now,
And the adults were right to warn me.

But I can't help but think:

Learning how to be happy in the moment seems
Like a valuable skill for me to have learned,
More important than citing references properly,
And more relevant than calculus.

I'm still young, and yet it's already nearly over.
Fates are sealed so early.

There are people who follow their dreams.
I know, I've met some of them.
But dreams are impractical.
Once I accomplish lots of things, maybe I'll have time for dreams.

But without dreams, who gives a shit
About accomplishing anything?
It's another Catch-22.
Oh well, no time for that: it's time for work.

Those dreams will one day become another stack of drawings
Gathering dust in the closet.
Those dreams will be something to remind me about my limitless potential
That I'm still not measuring up to.

Sorry, “to which I'm still not measuring up”,
Not that anybody under thirty knows the difference.

A good job that was, taking AP English:
Learning how not to end a sentence with a preposition.
That's been tremendously useful knowledge.
Many people I know can barely read, much less identify a preposition.

But the people who can read are generally intolerable.
Don't get me wrong, I hang out with the illiterates for a reason.
I made my choice; I guess I shouldn't complain.
But to be fair, I think my options were a bit limited.

The fool asks:

What is my place in this world?
There must be something I have to offer,
Some balance I can achieve.
I've no more patience for this life.

I get up in the morning because
It's better than getting fired
From a job I hate.
This is not good enough.

Domestic Violence

The Texas summer is an abusive partner
Wherever I go, it's
Screaming at me, belittling me
Making sure I stay small and powerless

And I can't leave
A hundred miles makes no difference
Even two or three hundred miles away
It's still there, beating me down

Everyone wants to know,
Why can't I see it's a beautiful sunny day today?
It's because I can't see anything
It's too god damn bright to see anything

In the winter, we have coats
To protect us from the cold
But in the summer I have only sunglasses

So I cry, I sleep, and I drink
I avoid being conscious
It's just too much to handle

The woman I love, she doesn't understand
It's not enough for her to just enjoy summer
And I'm glad she does, but
She makes me feel bad if I don't

Soon though, relief will come
Abject misery will transform into ecstatic joy
Let's go outside! I couldn't be happier
And all you assholes who gave me shit all summer

You suddenly disappear, saying
"It's too cold - it's freezing!" But
This is Texas, and you have no perspective
There's no such thing as cold in Texas

Despite my best efforts not to be,
I'm sure I was a negative Nancy
All summer long, and you made sure
To make me feel bad about it

But now, where are you?
Huddled indoors against
The biting fifty degree cool breeze
Who's the negative Nancy now?

Oh, that's right - it's still me
Because I'm in the minority
And in a system of majority rule
The minority is always wrong

Parabolic Hearts

The bull moose in rutting season knows not what he does;
A thousand pounds of raw power, pointless without direction.
The unfocused beam of the brightest light is outdone
By a mere candle and a parabola, just ask the sun.

Despite my best efforts not to, I've learned that
Rage is draining, and there'll be no more giving myself away.
So come revel with me in the power of intertwined hearts,
For lives lived in stereo are more than the sum of their parts.

Penance

Repent, you slime! But not for your sins,
Just for what you've done with them.
Repent, you saint! They belong to you
And no one else can shoulder them.

Repent! You worship a false god,
Whichever one it happens to be.
Repent, if you want, but in the end
Only you can set yourself free.

The one true god is the one within,
Beneath one's clothes and pretense.
The one true god is everyone, and
Every thing that makes up existence.

The one true god, what a fallacy!
An ideology for minds still in infancy.
The one true blade of grass, can't you see?
You must all bow down to it and me.
You must all bow down to my humility.

Mirror Image

I remember a time when I liked you more
And all the world could see
That my bad taste and faith in you
Would soon be the death of me

Problem Adult (for Andrew)

You can incarcerate a child and call his jail a school.
You can call his protests a deficit but that's just ignorant and cruel.
From this arrogant prespective you can be sure you're always right,
But you can suck my dick and blame yourself when the kid bolts in the night.

You're doing these kids a real disservice.
They're not as dumb and helpless as you'd like to believe.
Just because they don't buy into your bullshit
Doesn't mean they all have ADD.

Diagnosis Dissatisfaction

Lithium please rescue me from this ecstatic joy I feel-
What a pesky sense of elation, it must be an aberration.
Singing, how strange it is to be loved by you. Truly,
What an alienating blessing it is to make nonsense.

The greatest times I'll ever medicate
Are those spent alone in outer space.
With no one around to interfere, no longer
Do the two eyes distract from the third.

People are such an oppressive distraction.
I suppose they're grounding, like an injury-
Something nagging, reminding me I'm still here,
But all the more reason to escape.

Weathering the Storm

A nice placid rant rains down on me like napalm
Seems this afternoon's shitstorm is blowing in
Okay, you're right - I know nothing about
All these things you've already told me

So close and yet so far
You see, this is how we like it
We've got comfortable discontentment
Literally down to a science

Oh tell me again, the one about how
You've completely missed the point
God is such a prankster
He'll be the death of us all, I'm sure

Cascading Patterns

I sit on the porch with my peach princess
All I could ever need is here, staring straight through my soul
And I wonder if she even knows
That all she sees aren't merely ghosts, but cascading patterns
Colors I've never seen before tonight
Shimmer and dance before my very eyes, eyes so blessed to be here
For the final chapter of the great ordeal
I'd rather get hurt than never feel this beauty

This edge of the sword is much sharper than the last
And I wonder how long this will last
I hang from the cross - you could call it a loss
I'd be more upset, but I'm insane
I swing from the cross
Like all things going round and round, and up and down

But all is not lost. No, all is not lost
It's really not so bad to hang from a cross
At least there's a nice view of all the squalor and beauty too
There's more to see here than from a pew
And I am still here, and she is still here
There's really no reason to fear anything at all

Conzac (For Michelle)

Trapped in this life of pain and strife,
When into a different one born
Intuition let loose and put to good use
Instead of the target of scorn