reiteration.
I wrote this earlier this year. But I think it deserves reiteration.
Lost in a drunken stupor
everything starts to matter
everything hurts more.
when you sit down and you read a book and it turns your life around
and you think
why can't I do that
and you write and you write
and you find out things you never knew you knew
and you feel things you never knew you could feel
the pen touches the paper and you
go unconcious
but you're still writing
and you're more awake than you were before
and you realize maybe your childhood had something to do with it
do you blame your broken father or your absent mother
do you sleep while tossing violently
on a bed of booze and bad dreams
dreams about that guy you shared your skin with
a month ago when you thought you needed something
knew you needed something
to distract you.
But he was more than a distraction because he wrote and he sang and he cared
and because he was something else
so then you write and you write
and you find out things you never knew you knew
and you feel things you never knew you could feel
and you go unconcious because you don't want to care
but you're still writing and you're still thinking and you're still dreaming
beyond the booze and the absence and the noise
and the words come together and they actually sound okay
and then you get paid for what you felt
and you feel like you've sold out
and then you remember that you came from nothing
and you just wanted something
to matter.
Because nothing did before
when you took the blame for everything
because you were too young to know the difference
and you thought that everything your dear dad said was right.
But you started reading
and watching
and realizing
that
he was hiding behind a fear that was beaten into him as a child
because he's broken and he writes and he writes
and he found out things he never knew he knew
and he felt things he never knew he could feel
and he played and he played
the strings until his fingers bled and he wrote a song about you
but it wasn't enough
Just like it wasn't enough when his own father said he was sorry
When you have a gun pointed in your face
and you watch your mother cry and cry
It's just not enough
And you know he's tried but not hard enough
Not anywhere close
And sometimes you feel like maybe you're just as fucked up
And that's why you write
Because the thoughts, they pour out
And you can't stop
because if you do, it builds up
you break down and you cry yourself into oblivion on the floor
like your grandmother, and your mother, and your father
But you don't drown yourself in the pills or the booze
Not yet
You wait til you need to say something important
Because any other time you'd feel too vulnerable
And you don't want to be one of those emotional basketcases
who wears their heart on their sleeve
But regardless you know you're an emotional basketcase
and that's why you need that something
And once again you think back to your childhood
and wonder if you can blame it on your broken father
and your absent mother
and the house you slept in that was full of booze and bad dreams
You wonder why people like that pretend to have faith
in an invisible monster
Maybe it's because everything else is lacking and
there is nothing else left inside
They have no more words and no more songs
and no more chords to play
No more powder to blow them away
No more booze to drown themselves
No more faith in anything else
And you think back and you wonder if people always lived this way
If they were always so faithful in nothing
And faithless in what was real
If they drank themselves to death
And smoked themselves to black
And inhaled til their nose bled
If they held guns to their wives' heads
Because they were angry with themselves
If they wrote chords for their children
To make up for the noise and the anger
And the drunkeness
And you wonder if it will ever change
If there will ever be a definition for normal
If therapists will ever cease to exist
If people will write about how they grew up
and how it wasn't filled with rage
and fear
If we will ever live without fear of nothing
When people will write and write because the words are pretty
and not because that's how much it hurts
Because they are afraid
and it matters.
Lost in a drunken stupor
everything starts to matter
everything hurts more.
when you sit down and you read a book and it turns your life around
and you think
why can't I do that
and you write and you write
and you find out things you never knew you knew
and you feel things you never knew you could feel
the pen touches the paper and you
go unconcious
but you're still writing
and you're more awake than you were before
and you realize maybe your childhood had something to do with it
do you blame your broken father or your absent mother
do you sleep while tossing violently
on a bed of booze and bad dreams
dreams about that guy you shared your skin with
a month ago when you thought you needed something
knew you needed something
to distract you.
But he was more than a distraction because he wrote and he sang and he cared
and because he was something else
so then you write and you write
and you find out things you never knew you knew
and you feel things you never knew you could feel
and you go unconcious because you don't want to care
but you're still writing and you're still thinking and you're still dreaming
beyond the booze and the absence and the noise
and the words come together and they actually sound okay
and then you get paid for what you felt
and you feel like you've sold out
and then you remember that you came from nothing
and you just wanted something
to matter.
Because nothing did before
when you took the blame for everything
because you were too young to know the difference
and you thought that everything your dear dad said was right.
But you started reading
and watching
and realizing
that
he was hiding behind a fear that was beaten into him as a child
because he's broken and he writes and he writes
and he found out things he never knew he knew
and he felt things he never knew he could feel
and he played and he played
the strings until his fingers bled and he wrote a song about you
but it wasn't enough
Just like it wasn't enough when his own father said he was sorry
When you have a gun pointed in your face
and you watch your mother cry and cry
It's just not enough
And you know he's tried but not hard enough
Not anywhere close
And sometimes you feel like maybe you're just as fucked up
And that's why you write
Because the thoughts, they pour out
And you can't stop
because if you do, it builds up
you break down and you cry yourself into oblivion on the floor
like your grandmother, and your mother, and your father
But you don't drown yourself in the pills or the booze
Not yet
You wait til you need to say something important
Because any other time you'd feel too vulnerable
And you don't want to be one of those emotional basketcases
who wears their heart on their sleeve
But regardless you know you're an emotional basketcase
and that's why you need that something
And once again you think back to your childhood
and wonder if you can blame it on your broken father
and your absent mother
and the house you slept in that was full of booze and bad dreams
You wonder why people like that pretend to have faith
in an invisible monster
Maybe it's because everything else is lacking and
there is nothing else left inside
They have no more words and no more songs
and no more chords to play
No more powder to blow them away
No more booze to drown themselves
No more faith in anything else
And you think back and you wonder if people always lived this way
If they were always so faithful in nothing
And faithless in what was real
If they drank themselves to death
And smoked themselves to black
And inhaled til their nose bled
If they held guns to their wives' heads
Because they were angry with themselves
If they wrote chords for their children
To make up for the noise and the anger
And the drunkeness
And you wonder if it will ever change
If there will ever be a definition for normal
If therapists will ever cease to exist
If people will write about how they grew up
and how it wasn't filled with rage
and fear
If we will ever live without fear of nothing
When people will write and write because the words are pretty
and not because that's how much it hurts
Because they are afraid
and it matters.