and I am trying to find,
 the simplicity in the complexity
 between the lines

 in the fine print, 
are you finding it? 
all your memories of the past and all your hopes of the future that your mind broadcasts 

 cause all along we’ve been this way 
I’m trying to find if it will always stay the same, 
and remain unchanged. 

I feel it too 

but there's just nothing we can do

Poverty will always bother me
 It’s not a bother to you,
 cause you can’t see our hands are tied behind our backs
, my generations’ head is in a noose
 and you’re cutting off the slack.

 When will our dues be paid?
 I’m so fucking sick of 
seeing kids my age only worried about getting fucked up 
and laid My hands are frostbitten and 
frozen through my skin to bone 
 from snow storm Stoppie cart pushing 
 to loading Plymouth FedEx vans alone Always running late, never on time working 3am till 8.
 Six or seven days, no time for anything. All that I wanted then was just a full night of sleep. When will our dues be paid?
 I’m so fucking sick of 
seeing kids my age
 only worried about getting fucked up 
and laid
 when some of us are struggling and can't get buy on more than 40 hrs on this minimum wage Poverty will always bother me
 It’s not a bother to you,
 cause you can’t see faces you put below the guillotine, is history repeating?

 
 Give me a chance
to do more than just dance for CEO’s putting bullet holes 
in our feet.
 Put me on the road somewhere out west playing shows 
 so I can stop sitting home feeling so alone, wasting away, feeling defeated from their mistreatment
 out here on my own.

Today we say goodbye, 
to memories in times river that have been floating past me I say farewell to my home,
 one my friends will never forget, 
 a shelter from life's never ending storm. The blue house on kingwood st, in Wareham MA. 
I can ask any of my friends, they'll know the past, of just getting passed these last few years. 
A spot to chill for a good night's rest, a free meal 
I will never forget these times,
 even if some memories still haunt me and Mom, I've always understood just how hard things are, when you wander through a desert 
and see the springs from afar. 
And you wonder, when you can get 
the things that we want or need, be it a jar of weed, 
or a used car or just the luck of a shooting star. 
A chapter is closing and maybe you can thank God, 
8 years long, finally the crying, and the sobbing, and the fighting is gone. 
But I'll never forget everything you've done, 
 for everyone else, especially for the countless friends of 2 sons. 
 Never able to repay your hospitality. 
 I just hope they all understand what you clawed and struggled through 
to make this house a home, 
a reality.

I watched the colors change from black to white, then back to black.
 Rearrange their vibrancy until they were cracked and smashed
 It’s human on human violence, can’t you hear the silence screaming out?
 sometimes it’s just so loud 
you can’t hear, or even see, or find it’s meaning 

 I’m just high on life, and I'm high on pot.
 I’m lost in the thought
, trying to find myself in the faces 
 who walk the streets, it’s like they speak to me. 
I’ve wondered where they came from
 and how far they’ve come and where they’d go . Do you think their faces showed expression 
when they ran out of luck, did they give up or get up? Did they give up or get up? 
is that just how you live your life? 
are your eyes open, or are they closed?

My hearts hung on the wall 
nailed up with my past self,
 the ones I mentioned I propped up 
next to the TV and on the back shelf 
 next to all our Doctor Who posters
 the half empty cups we left on the table with no coasters, the ones I just forgot to wash as I watched and stared 
at a blank TV on a blow up chair, exhaled one long sigh into the air and I said so soft,

 “I’m just so fucking lost”. 

 I’m just too forgiving and that’s a give in.
 but you’ve been the one to help me,
 brain dead, 
in the land of the living. 

 This house we live in
 was made into a home
 one that picked me off of my feet 
and reconnected every severed limb
, reconstructed every cracked, and damaged bone.

 Time and relative dimension in space
 set the date and we’ll be gone without a trace 
I’ll go anywhere, just to be alone with the smile on your face. 
and I know that you love me it must be difficult to see that you sheered off all the leaves
 and cut the branches from the trees and 
left them cold and bare and I know that you’re scared 
 because you know I felt like 
I was there to stare

 and and watch as your lips locked in pairs 
like I watched it from afar 
maybe in another person’s car, in the passengers seat
 he leaned over and fashioned your defeat 
and you accepted his advances 
 I can’t play this in my head, so I retreat 
how’d could you risk us and this all 
and chance this? 

The girls at the drive thru of DQ
 and Dunkies they always seem to be smiling at me And I know how you hate it. and they could be beautiful
 but when I smile back they’re just faceless, and 
it’s tasteless, so let’s just erase this from our life and face this 

 let’s accept what has happened, let’s not may be distracted by attractions
 when there was no passion, just a meaningless action. 
So now I’ll hold my breath and count to three
 when I’m done I’m singing Allon-sy! 
 and it’s just fantastic, and so were you and I. 
I don’t want to go, I just can’t say goodbye. and I’ll never forget falling on you at the Lions Lions show
 Jumping off the meeting house stage
 shouting “Geronimo!” 
and I won’t forget this, no, not one line, and I’m asking again
 will you be mine, through all of space and time?


So here I am again
 with a backpack 
and two trash bags in my hands.
 Deemed myself, or so it seems
 subjected as subordinated, 
a transparent image 
of a man. For now, 
I am walking out. Walking past the spout
 of distorted fabrications that just 
trickle down your mouth 

 When I give up the ghost.
 Would you be by my side
 with guilt on your face 
and tears caught in your eyes
? whisper to yourself 
“tonight is the night that I take my own life”.

 So here I am, again.
 Asking myself about my fears and my doubts. 
Will they stoke the flame? 
Or extinguish my exhilaration
 in an attempt to put me out. 

You think these are just stories.
 You think they’re just games and 
life to you is just a picture on the wall
 hung between cracked glass
 and a dull and rotted frame.

 When I give up the ghost, will you be by my side
 with guilt on your face 
and tears caught in your eyes? 
With one last glance 
you can peer through the window through the mist
 and all you can see 
is your last chance 
and that it’s been missed.

 Life is just a game and we’re not having any fun. 
If life is just a game, 
then you speak up and you tell me
 who it is that’s won?

There are kids that I’ve know since 12,
 and I’m 20 now,
 that still haven’t done anything to better themselves 
It might be funny to you, but I’m just not laughing. 
I’ve spent the last 8 years changing over constant mistakes and regrettable actions 
that have led to to passing attractions, no money reactions.
 Just focusing all my time and energy 
on consistent constant passions 

I’m beginning to accept these trends
 that to tend to bend my mind 
and linger on from time to time. 
Resistance of existence is futile
 and persistence, it's mutually wild
 so I guess you have to sit and wait, 
cause it’s gonna be a while.

 When you sat to wait, 
time cracked the wall and chipped the paint.
 and it dyes the skies, and fracture truth from the lies. 
Expose a broken smile that hides behind blue eyes. I’m invisible, an indivisible individual,
 in a world of transparent residual ridicule 
 so it’s apparent that I've lost my patience 
and my cool. 

I’ve just had this empty feeling in my gut since I was just a kid.
 My mother said it was just growing up.
 but I’m starting to think that I’m just giving up or giving in. and I just can't win. 
I keep writing down these words, but always leaving them incomplete, and I’m losing sleep staring at a white page, a blank sheet, 
makes me wonder if I really am just admitting defeat.
 If growing up is giving in, you keep the youth, I’ll break the trend. If growing up is giving in, you keep the you and I'll break. If growing up is giving in I'll break the trend. 


I can never forget the things I’ve seen 
All the regrets that have filled the seams 
All the scenes we’ve caused 
and broken doors and ripped out screens.
 through the late nights of domestic fights 
 screaming at each other
 in the black out snow storm candle light,

 and Dad, 
I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t love you. 
I just wish that you had been there growing up 
 and all the bullshit that this family went through.
 If you could take all this back would you make it right?
 Preventing shouting fights
 and days without lights or heat and gas
 no cash to pay the bills
 not even milk or even bread and it fucking kills days spent on an empty stomach 
at least I still have my moral compass. I can never repay you, Rob,
 for working the countless hours at dead end jobs 
just to keep us afloat 
 and I know that it can seem like life’s a joke
 when you try to cope with the fact 
 the punchline is just a verbal attack I know you said that you’d never have kids 
but I’m hoping someday you’ll give in and that will change. You’re a man, a provider.
 I’m just the younger brother, 
 a lost ghost writer. 
I could never have done what you had done, 
even if the light in my dark was brighter.

 You were the one who fought for Kevin and I. A brother, our true father; something we could never deny. Kev, you and I we are destined for better things 
Some day, we’ll look back and laugh
 and we’ll sing 
this song about talks of outer space, 
and setting up a Moon base, and getting out past saturns rings But we just can’t break this pattern in what we find living below the poverty line 
we’re always working overtime 
just for pennies, and nickels and dimes.

 and I hope when I have kids of my own
 I’ll be a provider
 and a good father and give them a home
 with a roof and food on the table 
let them know they’re never alone
 even when you and I are unstable,
 unable or disabled. 
I will still be able to see them off
 on field trips and to Bruin’s games.
 their passion in music they 
let the family roots grow unchanged.

 I just wish that you would the same. Dad, I just wish you would do the same.
 If it eased the pain, would you take it all back
 or leave our lives where
 they were set to be arranged?
 at 21, you see me now 
 and all I hope is that I’ve made you proud 
and that you just accept me for the way I’ve turned out.

I guess no matter how strong, 
people seem to break like glass.
 The future tears the past
 as you drop the present to the ground
 you can’t do anything but sit around
 and watch it fall, you let it smash.
 You can try to pick up all of the pieces
 and try to put them back in their place 
but the cracks still remain no matter how they’re arranged.
 Did it ever occur to you that it won't ever be the same?
 Did it ever occur to you that things won't ever be the same?


I've stopped counting the days that I heard the siren's song always listening to them singing out did they ever acknowledge the cries for help? I’ve realized how transient the seasons have remained and what I've retained; the summers ending in rain, always the same, a dull heart throbbing pain. I’ve become so accustomed to falls denial.
 I let winter impel my empty smile. I let it sweep me off my feet
 ignoring all the signs of deceit . the lies are all stained like coffee rings 
in the passengers seat
 of what’s left of our 94 Taraus, 
I still just abhor this. 
 My mind was a slippery slope
 filled with sleet and snow 
 the brain always trying to cope 
with the attacks when the heart pulls back 
with blind love and lost hope 
I just can’t relax.

 I’m always misplacing spring. I’ll face my fears and summers sting. 
 as I watched them come and go, one thing synonymous with you. 
 But was it even in reason
 for these hearts to change with the season? 
I’m leaving, all this time, it’s been lying dormant
 in the back of my mind. 
It’s unsettling to say this; that fall haunted me with 
a despotism I hardly miss 
but it’s more so than I care to admit.

 Fall was there to keep me warm
 through every winter or summer storm 
 The nights, they bled into days. but we found a way to stitch the weeks 
to months, but the scars would stay.
 It’s been 3 years now and I still don’t know what to say. I guess I learned that absence, they fade to gray

I’ve been trying to plaster on this smile 
for the last few weeks.
 If you’d leave me be, I’d find away to bolt on all the teeth.
 You can color me in with shades of grey 
but if you color outside the lines
 you don’t have to erase it all away. 

 I’m tired of standing still 
when we have an expanding 
outstanding skill
 it’s a demand, commanding thrill. 
But I feel like I’ve lost the will.
 Watching others take the lead,
 as I’m stopped with no acceleration or top speed.
 We’ve tried for so long to reach for the stars 
and with attempt they’d leave my hands burned up and scarred 
 and I can feel the seasons under my skin 
the reason why I am wearing thin
 cause from the outside looking in
 you can probably see a grin etched right above the chin 
I can never tell if the sun is smiling or weeping 
or if and why he’d be sleeping. 
Tell me why it melts the snow? 
and I’ve felt his glow
 it’s not warm enough to keep my 
hands and nose from feeling numb
 is this really all there is, from the sum of 
who I am, to who I will become? 

and for far too long I ran away from fate.
 cutting corners out of every book 
so all you can see is a broken spine 
 and a tattered cover 
 battered and bruised up and stained 
But don’t throw it away. Don’t toss me aside 
cause no matter how much you crumble the page
 these words will always stay the same


I just sit and watch, I listen and observe
 It’s something I’ve always done 
 Placing my thoughts somewhere unheard
 except in the minds of the people who’s heads, they’re already overrun 
my thoughts remain 
preserved and undisturbed but do I deserve the nerves? As if this was anything but a change of pace 
This place has always remained the same
 while I witnessed everyone waiting for the scenery to change. And I guess I’ve just been that kid all along. 
 and that was the only place that I’ve ever called home.

 It was the only place that I've known, the soil where I was grown. I come back and walk down familiar streets
 see unfamiliar faces pass me by without a second glance
 without a greet and no repeat, 
 I don’t think their apathetic stance is just by chance. I’ve seen that look in your eye
 the same one I see in the expressions 
of people 
just passing me by I try to remember if this is how it’s always been.

 Is this how it's always been? 
it’s a furtive glance and nothing more.
 It’s like they can’t have rain unless it pours. 
I see the emptiness calling out 
like a ghost that with no voice 
trying to shout. Mouth to dry to speak
 slowly dehydrating from the drought. 
and I feel it too. 

I’m a naturalist
 a marijuana advocate 
 and that’s my catalyst 
I’m still a graduate, an antagonist 
I’m an accident, an absent activist 
I can’t stand to hear another word 
or take this shit. 

Behind these white walls 
I’m slipping away, with no phone calls 
 or anyone to keep my demons and ghosts at bay. 
I’m just siting up in bed, lying awake 
finding any attempt to supplicate that I’m just lost in my head, and 
that’s just the way it’s always been. 
When the sun rises with rays that are divided 
through my window 
 and I still see nothing but grizzled skies foggy, and grey. 
 and I can hear the wind blow
 from the ground below. 
Maybe I’d be excited to see 
if everything at once didn’t get to me. 
I just feel it too.
 I guess I always have.

 You and I, I realized were not so different. 
but the unsettling realization is 
what I hate about both of us is that we’re not resistant 
and I’ve become so distant. and I know you feel it too 
We all look for purpose, because I guess we think that we deserve it. But we spend life times working for nickels and dimes 
just to find no matter how hard you persist, it just doesn’t exist. 

It’s a mistake, it's a fallacy, it’s not even in our reality. 
it’s only in our hearts and minds and their expansive duality. 

 The whispers speak out in the darkness 
it haunts us and you lie awake, your mind unscathed and everything that you heard, and every word
 you tattooed with the scars of the past
 you wear a synthetic smile like you were miscast 
You just can’t speak up about anything you’ve been through 
I guess when it comes down to it
 I just don’t envy you.

 And all along it’s been this way
 and I think it will always stay the same 
and remain unchanged. 
But I’m forced to hear the silence in human vice, poverty, and violence 
 read between the lines, in the fine print, see simplicity in complexity But I’m just not finding it.

 and I'm just not finding it, and I guess I just feel it too.
 But there is just nothing we can do.