We've been breathing so long we can't hear our lungs Coughing up excess like it was our blood Maybe defacing Our art, wouldn't make it dishonest Piss-drunk like your author, channeling from Statues of prophets and profit-filled men "If everyone's famous, Then what do I look up to?" No, I don't need to make it myself There's plenty of fake real- ness to latch on to I'll build a perfect home Out of my hotel room We've berated the mirror with violent praise Every conceivable nothing to say Entertaining The idiots with high art The more I eat, the more I need to starve to live The more I realize ego death don't exist And all realizations I've had when I was fucked up Were false Comfort I feel it all the time Even though I Know there is More reason to feel scared I can't jump down from the high chair I felt alive Tied down Hands over my eyes Waiting for someone to notice Wait... Look at me, I'm changed! Look at me, I'm... All the way back down Look at me, walking among you now Things are changing, but I never will Put the babes on hold, and let pops refill Grinning wide, as I stand still As you burn my footprint I'll get a new body In the mangled wire Making fire Hell fire A hell fire's shell

Patience We'll have it when The narcissism seeps into our rocking seats So when our kids Die alone We'll have waited long enough to say, "It's not my fault" And the rambling, the solipsism Will be our legacy, and we'll be fine with it "No, no, no don't work too hard You need a break for yourself Don't wait around for signs" From crib to catheter in no time... Aging oblivion Slithered out her dress, and I paid my respects When she spit in my face I gargled like an engine, swallowed like a nun I was gambling for optimism But she was my only card, now I have nothing "No, no, no don't work too hard You need a break from yourself You'll always have more time Don't begin what you can't finish by tonight" "Don't work too hard" "Don't work too hard" "Don't work too hard" "Don't work" Patience Can't find my keys Can't find my pulse Ageless I have no pulse I didn't notice We were Always Thinking The same thing The same thing Giving up gets sweeter every time

The first time God met King Saul face to face, He was sitting on the roof of His old house ready to slide Himself off. As He walked Himself to the ledge, looking down over His earth, blurred as in a dream, God noticed Saul climbing up the chimney. Saul sat down next to God, and put a firm hand on His shoulder. And Saul said, “I’m here for you.” And then he said, “I’m here, also to be you, whenever you need not to be.” Though God did not know the King well, Saul had a sense of comfort and familiarity about him, one He felt like He could trust. So God said, “Okay.” And then He said, “I’ll leave now, but you’ll call me back if I get too far away, right?” And Saul promised Him, he said, “Of course. Always. I love you.” Upon God’s return, He found that Saul’s word had been pleasantry, not promise, For as God sifted through the blood of His children, trying to gather Himself, He could not help but notice how grand a display Saul had prepared Him. There were so many bodies. So many men, fallen on their own swords, watching their heads roll into the fire place, trying to slide higher for a better view. But God’s seat, as it always was, proved the best in His house. In God’s absence, Saul had put in place a sea of obstacles and distractions to stand guard for him, so he could slaughter the whole litter on the other side of the door, right under His nose, and not even make Him sneeze. Saul wished up torture until he was tortured. Pity until he was pitiful. Depth until he was deep. Or, at least, until he was sunk enough to not know the difference. God was so disgusted with what He saw that all He did was do nothing for a long time. It was not until after most of the bodies in His house had rotted beyond recognition that He at last gathered up the courage to confront the King. And God said to Saul, “You can’t stand there like an idiot and sit there like a king and make believe until you’re real.” And Saul said, “I am all that you have left me, and no more.” They argued with each other across the gates of heaven for what seemed like forever. Finally, after Saul had exhausted his arrogance, he stopped fighting and tried to listen. Instead of getting caught up in concepts, in slogans, in myths, in metaphors, and every other form of facade he wore around everywhere he went, Saul tried to be a bit more honest. “For if you can’t be honest with yourself,” God said, “you have no business trying to be honest with anyone else, do you?” And soon enough, Saul died. And God died with him. However, being the creator of all things living, God was born anew the next day, while Saul was cast downwards, Left to rot with his sacrifices in aging oblivion. Beneath a shell of myth, from a cradle of fire, He emerged fully formed. And it was then, that I, the prophet _____, began to climb the chimney.

I saw God Destitute, dragging out His lambs Said “no one will get another ticket to…” It felt wrong, But I stayed in clear view And I reached out My hand My hands, and… I saw God I saw Man I sold out But no one knows how to sell a story these days I was crowned On my knees Shouting, but not praying for A new set of teeth Or a way to forget What I’ve never had It’s always harder When you know you’re dying I found god he confounded me In my own fog Behind the trailer park In ransom town Where I owed him faith And, instead, I let him pay I always walk myself away… Destitute Empty of the vacancy that we looked to Always To reassure us that where we come from Isn’t really ever where we belong We don’t need a room Or cell To know that the door leads To hell I wanted you to run from them Scroll out our tracks, Then scratch them out, and fall into time like snow or freeze in the clouds though I’m dead already been fed already falling and crawling back to my bed, in my Father’s back house where Streetlights bleed down leaking Under my tears Searing the ground That’s how You know That I’m home Honey, you are home I just wanted to tell you Before I forget Honey, Welcome home