Bodies in Control

Our bodies are graves that we're digging,
Our flesh, coffins we live in,
rots and sloughs off.
It spreads, gangrenous, infecting every bit of us.
Yeah, everything that's us abandons love
to draw closer and closer to a headstone above
that soon, too, will crumble to dust.
Clay pots, fragile like glass lamps blown,
packaged, shipped and drove cross-country
installed and broken, illuminating nothing,
just hands on thighs and eyes on
nickels and dimes, and all things Spring
cast aside as if there were no autumn
as if nothing at all dies
when for most of us that's the meaning of life.
Live. Die. Live. Die. Live. Die.
Dig a whole hole and lie down there alone.
It's your only hope to hold
if your body is your control.
Let go.
Close your eyes.
Clasp your hands.
Lie.
Elope.
Your groom is waiting by the phone.

Flood and Guns (2 Different Things)

There's a flood, and boy, you're chest deep
and might as well be miles from the nearest tree.
What you wouldn't do for a relationship,
God, any kind of ship would be a help at the moment,
I bet you're wishing you were somewhere else
With someone other than your own damn self,
waltzing like 1, 2, 3, rather than in the street,
Trying not to drown beside a levee.

Change is Necessary

The blatant disregard for symmetry will not so easily be forgotten, no. "You need to go out like you came in, ignorantly nakedly full of bliss," never mind that it undermines your existence. This greedy twist of fate or turn of phrase just takes away. It doesn't add a single excuse to stay or change or hope for life worth remembering; just dust.

If you worship symmetry, you're gonna fold like paper.

there to here

there's nobody worth saving,
yet the life-vest exists as well as
the medic-alert necklace, sold lately
on late night tv to people like me
at sixteen in search of squiggly
pornography better than nothing,
better than sleeping, I'm such
a worthless piece of something -
swallowing seafoam and all kinds of everything
or anything I can, oh man,
how did I come from that to who I am?
from 3AM teen to church leadership team,
but even still perfectly imperfect
perfectly seeking perfection.

Yellow

have you ever looked at the color yellow?
Man, I hate it,
it's so toothy, so much like piss,
and man, it just kinda makes me sick,
I prefer black.
And Blue Jeans.
Whenever you try to wash blood from
light colors, you just end up with
yellow spots, like nictotine
soaking in and standing out like
"hey everybody look at me,
I'm a human and I bleed,
and I don't spray and wash my stuff
before it goes in the machine,
I'm so disheveled and unclean,
even my clothes seem to scream
how much they can't stand me,"
Yellow. Leave me alone.

BG

How can boy and girl be considered compatible
when they are always just crashing like cymbals
clanging like wind chimes in a hurricane
screaming out sounds and tears that pierce more ears
than your local tattoo shop?
How can boy be a crutch when all he seems to do is mess up?
Oh, his tongue tastes so surely like shoes,
and his mind left reeling only catches tires and boots,
my God, where have all the fishes gone?
How can a girl be his world when she's not orbiting
just kind of revolving in place, arms tucked away,
not looking at his face, tears leaving lines
where they've carried her makeup somewhere else to stay?
How can boy and girl go together like puzzles,
when they struggle just to stay in the same box,
when the pieces that make them partial to each other
stay hidden under jeans or ribcages and behind
zippers and words? And anyway, shouldn't it be an
everything kind of thing, not just this piece fits
that piece fits, but when everything comes together,
it falls back apart into little frustrating bits.
How can it be?

Floating

I feel so isolated and
alone and cold.
And shivering on a couch
tonight while she's away
does not seem okay.
It does not feel good,
and now that my fever's broke,
so I am, and yet stuck
I just want someone to call me up
and say, "Matt, let's chill
tonight. Let's."
You see, oh me, I'm not brave.
I'm not.
I'm not brave, no, I'm not.
I'll be shivering, holding out my phone,
on the couch while my baby sleeps,
and my lady is away.
See, I can't leave.
I can't.
I have to just be
there, but you can be there, but you..
but I'm afraid to be a burden, and
I'm just so not brave.
I live in an ocean of self-pity,
where God finds me floating,
and with the soft strings of a guitar
bids me walk up on the water
and not drown.

And yet I still feel.