Spiders and silverfish crawl on the walls Making stains where they step and in chains they get wet Tortured in some medicine cabinet chemical 'Til they bow to some master or some monster with their fist in a clench with a dripping, sewer stench Destroyed Poor country boys and negroes pull til they're full with their brains steeped in war Asking only for more Abused by some mechanical delinquent A bug in the system or your mother, father, or sister Making pools of blood shimmer while the mud below simmers Destroyed Asian girls and young white men, seek out the meek looking only for ease To be playful and teased Meddled with by cities far apart 'Til they know its too much Driven too mad Holding nothing so dear as to listen or hear Destroyed

Your sounds are all real "The real deal", they tout If they knew what you were about They look to be green Clean, what i mean to be true But i'm not sure they know you Dead in the streets All beat, defeated, tried And confidently decided Watching the gap A pat on the back for a pose They'll assume and suppose Listen for rings Singing strings in your throat Words you never could've wrote Standing so bleak Freaks at bleecker and sixth Look at you 'fore they split Sometime you'll try To get by, end up hiding, held in Where does one end and one begin?

When you lit up your smoke I think that's when I realized How cool you must've looked Or how dumb I must've felt Because I wanted all ya took And there's certainly no turning back now When you took off your shoes Maybe that's about when I knew I was gonna have to lose Cause hair like that don't flow When someone like me is in the room And there's certainly no turning back now When you stepped out of the car I guess that's when I figured out That all my cheap cigars Would never make me cool enough To fit within your palm And there's certainly no turning back now When you picked up your guitar I saw it in your fingers In the way you drove your car The way you sat reserved The way you closed the night in awe And there's certainly no turning back now If your eyes weren't so bright Maybe I might have a shot At seeing you through the night Or maybe saying something 'stead of staying out of sight And there's certainly no turning back now When the night time eats away And chases down what's left Of all the hopeless, easy prey That ultimately defies my ego As it slips away There's certainly no turning back now If you'd simply give me time To rearrange the way I think and push all this behind Maybe all those scattered thoughts Won't matter in my mind Cause there's certainly no turning back now

Trapped inside an unfurnished room The walls look the same and they tower and bloom The cities outside but its sure not in here And all I've got now is all my hopes and my fears Stuck inside with nobody to call A house that's asleep, a house that's never a home I could be tough, work the rest of it out But all that I seem to do is sit here and shout Maybe the world keeps us longer than that Stranded in pain as our bodies grow mad Making the night up as the clock ticks away But on the silent 5th floor, I can't hear it anyway How do the shapes of the room twist so strange When all that is here are the blank walls from the day Maybe we'll stay a while or maybe we'll go This might be forever, this might not be enough And as I get higher, as my hands start to shake My body will twist, then throw itself away I can't make a sound, I can't talk to you now All that is here is this flame that I've found And as the flame starts to flicker inside It's glow all-encompassing, destroying my pride The world isn't there, and the world isn't here There is nothing to love and there is nothing to fear And I will go on, and I'll follow the flame And although I have fear and although I have shame There is nothing where there once was me Can I finally say that I'm finally free?

who made you to press organ keys under wooden spotlights with hungover swaying in Sunday morning rain for carrying water bottles safely under your arm down the highway and back listening to preaching form a pleasant hum but plastic idols hang around and candles don't shine under electrical lights chasing archaic hymns toward the grave well shaved and well dressed, khaki foot steps to the alter hiding treason or thought or freedom in jazz keeping in your sharp-elevens and flat-nines keeping them close to you in spirit or maybe close to heart to break free from your cadential figures of p. a. c. or i. a. c. or plagal or some other combination of letters strung to memorize, seeing not with your eyes but with your ears but you hear with your mouth or taste what you see and you judge it in colors in red sights and sounds in blue lips and nights in pink, striped shirts in imitation shades in green-dyed drainpipes cut-off at your knees cut-off where you please cut-off towards your wrists or your pink fingertips where you hands used to be where you eyes used to be lost in miles of fading night as you draw nearer to the light to make glimpsing passes of eye contact dissolving all your contracts saving desperately the facts you think you're sure of more than anything like some blanket to keep you warm because its cool in this room and the carpet is freezing into needles needling your broken vinyl on the wall making sure that vintage means a couple hundred bucks and that individuality sells and that you'll never press keys 'less you want them t' be pressed make your choice where you have choice and dont accept where you dont dont look back dont look forward dont look here make twenty dollar bills to last you days beyond your quota quoting ginsberg in your sleep, weeping daily past 18 take the county roads as far as they will go, find a home find a place to slam the shutters, left blindly down the road til the nights you feel are empty, hollowed trees and hollow centers in the sun, burning slow, burning bright, burning even through the night naked, twitching on cocaine and wishing things were still the same blaming sons and daughters simply for their names believing only who you ask asking only who you believe cycling forward on two wheels to the street to the burning New York heat to the sweating of the dance pit pitches everyone to the step of your skating shoes skate on wings, waxing soft waxing down, down and up left and right, good and bad dreaming dreams you've never had til the characters all sleep by your side in your bed holding over, make 7th ave look crisp and latin latent talent torn apart until you are all thats left you, sitting stunned all in black, all around black blackened eyes, blackened skin feeling ultimately disgusted with your books and school and kin and your friends that just get you high for cheap looking for something to eat or some way to pass the time til your money dwindles thin dripping everywhere, peering out through squinted eyes communist lies, they'll shout or shout conspiracy til they don't know what it is they're talking about and hyperbolic memories, subject to being optimized or terrorized or publicized through someone else's eyes designed to trap you at your own shore sure of everything for now dont look back dont look forward dont look here who looked so beautiful at first but now is all but sweet vivid caricatures of her brittle legs and feet puffy cheeks and hazel eyes swimming in your morning coffee swimming in your morning curtains swimming in your morning day dreams swimming in infinity infinitely looped to the divine try'n' to analyze your mind written on notepads and TVs and on lead sheets, bed sheets, metal sheets scraping at your forearm skin that bleeds a metal sheen taken to the factory floor taken out the factory door wonder what all that work was for or when you'll give up when your egos been tied up and chained and gagged and bound and wrapped around your little finger tightly as you tap on your thigh typing streams of words at breakneck pace with naught time to waste, not time to pace racing heartbeat, racing pulse, racing perfume in your purse on your walls obsessed with 1960s icons iconoclastic in every way you're not waves that crash through your hair causing wonderful streaks that shine in ways that never were meant to be that make the air around them fit jigsawed under boredom's stare and wondering how much you could possibly care dare to look again, dare to be yourself whoever that is whoever you are dont look back dont look forward dont look here