The picture doesn’t release its secrets
Three more cigarettes and you’ll get there
From passing vehicles unkind faces stare
Are you a step-child of the planet
The door is closed only to you
Gas lamps and oil trucks
The band plays louder
Buried up to my nose in noise
With one click it’s a date
With two it’s love
Are you still reading
Are you still there
Buried in boxes of books tales so long untold
Shadows crawl up the wall
Shorter days minutes of love will never return
Sunshine give-away
The disc continues to spin
Music is my wife
Richard lives on a dollar fifty a day
I watch from my personal incarceration chamber
Rolling close the bus did not stop
Parasites consume the remaining beauty
I can’t believe I’m here now
“Hangman. Hangman wait a little while
I think I see my brother coming riding many a mile
Did you bring some silver? Did you bring some gold?
What did you bring me my brother to keep me from the gallows pole?”
Push it back Push it back
In the darkness she reaches for that last hope of normal
From now on all the smiles are lies
Crashing waves seem sympathetic
Unrevealing and recoiling
The spin pushes you to the next day
Buried in diversions you’ll be happy
Smile so others can see
Are you still reading
Are you still there
“I can see my brother coming -riding many a mile”
Falling by two replacing the next
Gas lamps and oil trucks
Tuesday morning and Calamity’s luck
Catching rays
Turn me back to the light
Mine isn’t your way
Enough with the artificial
I’m the punk who won’t play
I can be kind enough to get through the day
I see the lie behind your smile
No call out
because like me you
just want to get through
I won’t take the advantage
You shouldn’t either but you did
That blanket will keep you safe
Push it back Push it back
Louder louder let the noise wash through you
Scream in your chamber
Call me out for the fool I am
If you don’t I’ll keep dancing
I’ll wear the fashion of acceptance
While me madness spirals out of control
Green stairs and faceless bodies
Chasing down the emoji of love
and no one’s around
Sucking it in
Algorithms are true
You are defined and defiled
Identity in a sea of nobody
Like a stadium wave when you don’t
Dancing on the precipice of the dark web
It’ll be stored and analyzed later
soon as we hire enough people
The anonymous pens your autobiography
Are you still reading
Are you still there
The good part’s on the next page
Grasp at brotherhood and sisterhood
Gasp that last bit of air
A glance of mistrust your look doesn’t
match the event
If not invited to, you’ll leave
Is your only response to light up a waffle house
To advantaged the weak
Were those your childhood dreams
Is this where you want to be
I wish I could understand
I could provide options
Something else to express yourself
All the good you’ve done
All the pain you’ve eaten
has left you cold enough to destroy others
Did your grievance take you out of love
Is there no peace in this noisy world
Must your primal insanity take control
Why make others pay
You can discover love
You can be the strong one
You can demonstrate integrity and compassion
A ripple of joy
A foundation of hard fought peace
Stand tall to be kind
Before you take that step
Remember laughter
You are human
So are they
