[MERIT]

As I wake up out of bed, I pour myself a half dozen shots of this gasoline that fuels the beast in all but the most effective ways. A great start to the day is the least to say. I’ve been here before, for the better parts of night and morn’. But it always seems so new and fun. These scars heal up in ways that’s so gruesome that I can’t even look myself in the eye, cuz the mirror broke to pieces years ago. Back when it was originally time to go, but I have a bad habit of going against the flow of time and space. Dodge my kicks cuz someone tied my laces before I even started this rat race. And the pace was more elaborate and grueling than I had anticipated, with these outdated beats I try to scramble to my feet and take it on the other cheek, cuz my chin got broke and shattered long ago when I tried to just let it go, but ended up with a cracked soul and a skull full of memories that I can never hold. I used to know this kid named Atlas. He carried on his shoulders a boulder comprised of the shortfalls and the failed practice of the masses, and he held it high and walked in stride and did his very best not to cry as he swallowed his pride and tried not to wince at the crown of thorns that was dripping blood into his eyes. So with a helping hand I helped him stand and take the weight up off my man. Cuz two broken backs are better than one when it comes to understanding why we can’t hack this. I read every book ever written and I still don’t understand even half this. I guess that’s what you get when love seems more like a deadly sin than a habit. Sometimes you get that itch and just gotta have it, but I can’t pull it out of a hat. Cuz love is in your heart, not in your head. At least that’s what my mother said to me when she wasn’t busy with her own life. But I digress, cuz a wife and kid of my own has added ten years to my aging bones and turned my softened heart to a sinking stone. Echoing like resounding tones, shattering these vows to keep it together, my eyes can better express the things that I couldn’t say inside that letter. But I doubt you even read it. How do I know? Cuz I saw it unopened up in your closet. But time is best at healing all wounds, at least that’s what the bartender claims when he kicks me out his drunken saloon. And I end up back in bed, doing my damndest not to let my mind roam, and wake up, spinning inside my head, and thinking damn, man, where did the day go?


So I say give it all up, for the words we never said. As we’re walking on by, dragging our feet like they were dead. Cuz a hole in your heart is just something you learn to live with, to live with.
And I say give it all up, for the wounds that never close. As we’re moving on by, wishing days would never go. Cuz a hole in your heart is just something you learn to live with, to live with.


In relation to our past, I’m second only to carelessness when it comes to making you forget all of the good times that we had. I was turned into a monster, but without the bolts in my neck, now I’m sparked alive only by the fire that I once had inside. I treat door jams like halos, like an angel without a master, letting the slam of the barrier between our two worlds act as the greatest common factor. As the sunshine and the moonlight wind down, turning smiles into a frown complete with torches, as the people of the village chase me through the town. If I had a single weakness, it would be the fact that I was all too aware of the destruction that knowing of your weaknesses can bring. In the bliss of ignorance I once lied figureless, until the frivolous clank of my shackles reminded me what prison is. In a 360 degree shadow where I once stood, lay the remains of a man who planned a life filled with nothing but good. But as plans go awry, the man crumbled into stone. Laying naked in the floor, in a million pieces, all alone. And as the memory faded to black, I snapped back and decided to distract from all the things in life that started to pile up on my back. A man anew, but never created overnight. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was I, if you believe what the ripped up pictures have to say. To the delight of the set-top box I sit back and cruise through the mundane fame that this new me is expected to consume. A diet this drastically different is oddly similar, yet distant, to the self-consuming future that I once had envisioned. You can never truly be happy with what you want, because once you get it you stop wanting it and start hating it all at once. With a perpetual state of reaching for the stars set on repeat, I can fade into the background, leaving only a memory of me. And with one small leap and push to plunge it deep, I can take away all of the power you once held over me.


So I say give it all up, for the words we never said. As we’re walking on by, dragging our feet like they were dead. Cuz a hole in your heart is just something you learn to live with, to live with.
And I say give it all up, for the wounds that never close. As we’re moving on by, wishing days would never go. Cuz a hole in your heart is just something you learn to live with, to live with.


So as I sit here juggling the contemplation of my woes with the realization that this is the only lifetime I have in which to grow, I take a look up into the sky, wondering why the clouds still refuse to wave goodbye to me before I go. My clocks forever stand still, with hands pointed in the direction of our reflection in the mirror that I punched into pieces until it broke. The one I threw out when you gave me the boot, when you left the hospital and wanted nothing to do with me or my feelings and said you were only with me because I was the best that you could do. Because I remember things as they were, not as the fairytale that I once imagined they could be. My mind’s glasses allow me to see glimpses of a world that you’ll never see. With failed attempts at humor, I try to mask the everyday task that getting out of bed has become, wondering when I’ll finally be done with this pointless cycle of rising moons and falling suns, forever accepting that finishing the race is more important than being the person who finally won. The strength of my ability is reliant only upon my will, and the souls that I set free are far more important than the one you killed. They say it’s hard to move on when you don’t have anything to show, and only the good die young because they find a place that they’d rather go. Well I know where I am and the places where I’ve been, and the future is only cloudy if your deeds fail to outweigh your sins. So I gave it my best shot, I hope that it’s enough, because when your plans fail the best thing you can do is just give it up.


So I say give it all up, for the words we never said. As we’re walking on by, dragging our feet like they were dead. Cuz a hole in your heart is just something you learn to live with, to live with.
And I say give it all up, for the wounds that never close. As we’re moving on by, wishing days would never go. Cuz a hole in your heart is just something you learn to live with, to live with.

[MERIT]

Here's a recent one that I wrote, getting kind of personal :$