Le Fou

In looking for truth
We surround ourselves with lies
In searching for love
We sever all good ties
What little faith we have
Is often squandered on false idols
If heaven is a place
I have yet to find the isle

So many nights in vigil
So many days in siege
So many lives in sigil
The pawn of a cruel liege
The bird longs to touch ground
Much the same as we long to taste the sky
Yet for every answer found
We can only continue to ask why

I have often praised a warm body
And nurtured it with my tenderest caresses
Yet find my self so often cold
Seeking a goddess of silver-streaked tresses
In the darkness we spill our secrets
To gods unknown in despairing hope
Pleading for the dreams we hold dear
Parlaying for the strength to shed these tropes

Find me a fool once, you are entitled
Seek me a fool twice, you will be humbled

The Shade, The Denial.

Stubborn is the child that cannot see its own fault.
One who denies and refutes what it so rightly knows
And in the end will simply say it no longer cares about the matter.

What hope there might be when recognition is reached
Is brought low by the inability to admit fault.

Hearts break and light fades.
That is what happens when you lay under shades.

Klutz.

Every time I open up, they reach out and sting me.
Every time I welcome them in, they dig in and rip me.
Every single time I weep, they just spit and kick me.
Because I am weak? Because I need?

Perhaps I am ugly in truth.
Inside, the weeping child yields fumes.
And in the light he's pale and anemic...
In the light he sings the wrong tune.

And while he watches on they leave...
the women: sisters, daughters, lovers.
And while he watches on they shine
the darkness comes to take me over.

Rinse and repeat.
That is the cycle.
Every single time.
Love's brought nothing but pain.
Love's brought nothing but regret.
Itself, Love, has been little more than a hindrance.
It is, as it is, my most horrid addiction...
And so I fall... I fall...
Worth nothing.

Troothy Truth Tooth

Up and down it runs. It splotches and it grimes.
I smell it but I pinch my nose.
I spray it with my garden hose.
Leave it under the sun to dry and hope it doesn't die
Half hoping it might
Half hoping it's right
Highlight my errors and draw new plans
It turns to dust in my hands
I inhale it for my glands
And it burns brightly in my brain, right as rain
the light it gives is warm
and it becomes my charm

Empty and cold, the mind tells itself it is not shallow
But all throughout life in these dark things I wallow
Stubborn and bold, the fire takes its hold
I burn, I burn, I burn
Will I rise from my own ashes?

Tired.

I'm tired of bittersweet. I'm tired of thinking so much. I'm tired of sitting alone and pointing the gun at my temple. I'm tired of being myself. I'm tired of not being myself.


Noise. So much of it.
No more noise. Please.


I'm so out of myself...

"Good"

"Good"

I see what you're doing
I've seen it before
I've played with the patterns
I found them a bore

The mood swings erratic
The party's gone sour
The times have grown slim
And the heart is devoured

Chorus
I'll be the bad one
In the sun when you tell your tale
I'll be the bad one
In the dark when no one cares
I'll be...

The wages of sin are...
Are my daily rapport
The one's left behind
Someone else will adore

And to those I have wronged
No apologies forth
And to those I have loved
Look for me in the North

Chorus...

In the light you dream and sway
Hide your ugly truths an play
In the night I waste and burn
As I wait for luck to turn

Chorus...
I'll be...
bastard
thief
unfaithful
creep
disdainful
piece of shit

I'll be...

The Kicker.

It's one of those nights when I know I should be sleeping but I don't want to sleep. Been dreadfully tired all day. My little girl gave me a difficult night and having a broken foot are not a walk in the park in tandem. The evening has proven... interesting.

Like some sick little heroin junkie I keep getting into these situations with certain people that leave me wide open. I'm a sucker and I know it. I don't seem to care that much about being a sucker anymore, though. We're all fools, for one reason or another. We're all fools.

I am enriched by all this, I know. Parts of me - the more physical aspects - influence me in ways that would seem rash; act out needs, desires. I'd like to think I know better. It's still difficult.

Life is a funny affair. Someone's laughing, of this I am sure!

Itch.

Funny word, that: Itch.

When we itch we scratch. Simple. But it's wrong. Not just in the physical sense. Sometimes we crave things that may be very detrimental to ourselves.

I itch on many levels. I think I won't scratch, though. Much like the itch on the skin beneath the cast over my right foot, I will ignore my itches.

The Fickle Flowers.

It’s what you don’t say, that’s what gets under people’s skin.

They guess at what you say and the issues you skirt, and when you don’t quite give an answer it’s like their minds need to fill in the blanks. They create these elaborate fantasies about what it is we do, what it is we think, what it is we are...

It’s that way with women, often enough. They ask, they say, they throw lures and hope you bite. You brush closely to the bait and might gnaw carefully at the worm on the hook and they build these sand castles that have little base in reality.

But we also build our castles, which are far more fragile, so we keep them under lock and key. We ensconce them away in our labyrinthine hearts lest they get trampled by the fickle art. Much like a spider female hides her womb behind maddening twists of tissue, we hide our cores from the pricking ones in a bizarre role reversal.

As they dance away from us we sway in feigned disinterest, we must play this game of ebb and eddy to lure them into our caves. Once they have come in we falter in fear for we’ve all but forgotten where we've put away the keys. Our inner beings lost, forever cut-off from the outside. In striving to achieve this we lose the children we were and become callous monsters, witnesses in horror as we simply watch: we blunder and plunder and level the gardens.

Untitled Lyrics

sitting out on a ledge
i see the world so clear
i live a crippled life
within a shroud of fear

the lights, they look so bright
the people, far away
and in the fall of night
we feel the toxic sway

fitting out of the view
the problems seem so small
like skipping stones on a lake
The fool will always fall

the sights they seem so real
the tastes they seem so right
the hearts, they beat to heal
what's hidden in the night

And the moon is bright.

Acknowledging the Monster.

How do you end something with the most amazing person you've ever met?

The sweetest, most understanding person and you realize you're not for them... not now... tomorrow... who knows? What you felt has somehow, recently, stopped being... and emptiness is the dawn as the day fills with guilt and horror. You weigh heavy with sorrow...

What does one do when one knows one is not in that same area and one may have simply moved beyond the vicinity of that one place some time before?

This person I am now... am I better than I was before? One would think so. One would hope so... one does not know.

This person I am today... Just what the hell am I? Who the hell am I? I know, but the mind reels at the admission. The mind reels. If that phrase doesn't exemplify it all, well, then I am no good at my forte... words.

But I must move on. There is nothing but to move on. But I do not know how, not really... Because ending my life now would leave my daughter without a true father and I cannot bear missing any of my daughter's life if I can help it... even to the point of turning me into a coward? Perhaps.

I will not end it today... and I won't willingly end it tomorrow, I think. Suicide's never really been my thing.

Perhaps I am just waxing poetic, non? Devious consolation to any who care, that! Waxing moronic, waxing sardonic, waxing into absolute inanity.


Perhaps, if I was a better man, I would seek solace in her breast... but I am not that man. I am not like that... I am an island of idiocy or sheer obstinate purpose...

The man in the mirror... the man in the mirror... the man in the mirror... I wonder.. have I ever really liked him?

As a child I was an odd sight to myself. As I grew up I became awkward and obtuse. Into my teens at first I was horrid and then I wondered at what I saw... the change and the flexibility... I fancied myself an actor... but I only got a lead in a farce. And now, all these years removed from those late nights in front of the mirror wondering at what I might be, I am odd to myself. Alien in recognition.

The man in the mirror...

The man in the mirror, tonight, is crying. His face contorts like some carnival show freak... the features ugly beyond all semblance of humanity. Eyes red from the salted water... and sheer self-loathing running rampant in his veins.

The man in the mirror broke the heart he wishes he had never broken. The man in the mirror fell out of love, somehow, and the dawning of this made him miserable... but no more miserable than the one to whom the news was broken... the road to hell is paved with good intentions... and the man in the mirror bawls at the reality; that he has failed to open his heart, somehow, or rather his heart is somewhat dead. It beats no more, though he fancies he hears phantom beats, much like an amputee would sense a phantom limb.

I can scant find a way to hate the man in the mirror more than I do so tonight. I am done with these charades, done with these facades, done with trying... just done.

I deserve all the pain that will come my way. I deserve all the pain that has already come. But I wish I could undo certain parts of my existence, sweet though they were at the time - and will be in memory -, for then those whom I have loved and love, those who are truly beautiful, would not be burdened with having known me and having felt for me or feeling for me still...

I have lost the most beautiful person I have known... she loved me and I failed her. I felt once... and it faded... did I feel? Do I feel? I'm dead inside... would the body follow soon after?


The man in the mirror - Savatage

There's a man that I used to know
And sometimes he still visits with me
When it's late and the alcohol's glow
Is nearly gone
And it's time to awaken

And he looks and he laughs at the sight
And he asks what has happened to me
And I blame it all on the lights
But he smiles and says I'm mistaken
And there is no use in disguising
What the eye can so clearly see
That I've spent my whole life denying
That the man in the mirror is me

Give me one second chance
Give me one final dance
Give me one magic line
Take a minute off my time

Give me one final bow
If the moment allows
While he stares at the scars
Saying just who you are
Just who you are
Just who you are

In a child like illusion of life
He imagined the things yet to be
But they all disappeared on this night
Carry on among the forsaken

For there is no use in denying
What the eye can so clearly see
That one day I too will be dying
And the man in the mirror agrees

Give me one second chance
Give me one final dance
Give me one magic line
Take a minute off my time

Give me one final bow
If the moment allows
While he stares at the scars
Saying just who you are
Just who you are
Just who you are
Just who you...

are.