i've a cartoonish quality for a hand drawn figure so when i leap off the page to where real human people linger i'm met with horrored sighs palms rubbing perplexed eyes so how can i express the words to convey why i am in your world why i was freed today i hoped with all my might and colored pencils hues just to make some sense to normal human people like you i hoped with all my strength and speech bubble points of view just to make some sense to normal human people like you

in a locked box under adulthood's bed is a parchment sheet of proof a yellow piece of crinkled language revealing a stifling truth: "you are never gonna see your friends as much as you did before in that creaky blue bricked building where the "derbis" caked the floor" and no book I've read or movie seen ever could prepare me for the psychological torment of deserting my forged family goddamn a group aligned by focused goals before them predisposed that they took in grasp and made their own in fists tightly enclosed with the hopes of bettering each other through the excessive process of grinding skin and bone to dust or to the point of medical distress the only thing that foils us now was ironically our task crossing distances at moderate pace as our skeletons collapse awe, fucking goddamn

i saw **** when you tied up your hair it begs me to ask is it her fingernails i feel emerging from the holes in between my hair follicles or is it yours i feel burrowing for shelter in the backside of my skull? i balance my smartphone between my fingers as you comb your hair in the mirror naked i slide my tips across the screen eyes fluorescent blue you're still untangling each amber knot upon your sun strewn skin i come up behind you and hook my hands around your collar bones like a butcher hanging pork flesh except that its not bloody and you're not for sale but i'm still trying to buy though you don't deserve my money and you don't deserve my time your words are like vomit they're disgustingly acidic and once they erupt out your mouth they'll never go back in it

he'll cross a black x on the back of my right hand as i cross into a new world order of alcohol and inconsequential conversations about the future and other possibilities that even i haven't figured out, and this is the same guy who a decade ago wrote in journals he'd release 5 albums by now so when it took him a couple years and a rotating cast of lyrical profundities i finally squeezed one out like the last bit of paste in my tube of colgate yet my teeth are deteriorating at the same time that would be, desperate but with hope that i can save the sinking ship that is my mouth everyone has their own projection of their future to teenage me its a platinum album to current me, its a decent paying job everyone has their own hopes for their character arc to teenage me its success to current me its praying i dont have cavitites (we interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this quick message) now I'm chatting with blake about his senior thesis and cant help but feel a little pissed off he spent university time googling china's affinity for hollywood despite the fact that their communist government doesn't look fondly on colonization practices of america's past (its a bit of a mouthful) and what have i done in the years i expended? make forgettable acoustic music and a fucking bandcamp page? but fingers crossed that someone important listens so i skyrocket my way into internet fame everyone has their own definition of success to blake its a published paper to me its a light to decent 6 everyone has their own sense of accomplishment to blake its a grad school degree to me its a hope that one day ahead of me i'll give up on my dreams and settle for corporate mediocrity (i guess it's not so funny anymore) (shit)

i have a habit of twisting the sink handle slightly to my right thanks to the lovely old shit i called my home for only four years but nonetheless it calls me, beckons me to return to its creaks and dead mouse boogie with these meaningless motions meant to circumvent its shortcomings ...in short, the sink there would drip unless i twisted the handle slightly to my right

it's come to the point in my life where i'm not thinking of the future anymore the excitement of the unknown is more palpable than a singular open door so if i walked through its frame with a closed mind and heart i would be terrified of what could come ahead but instead i'm delightfully satisfied with the successful life and times I've led i could have been a consultant take my comfy salary home but i'd be better off cleaning windows and giving away my smartphone i could try computer science but my brain don't work that way i see colors and music and art and nostalgia that lead my focus astray on a bell curve of narcissism i'm nearing the peak of the roller coaster ride an incline of inward focus collapsing back to earth at the age of 25 girlfriends turn to wives, jobs turn to careers self expression turns to insurance plans and savings acting brash and young and bold is dumbed down to societal behaving i can still be that consultant take my comfy salary home hire someone to clean my windows and spend my leisure time on smartphones i could buy a modest household if my credit score looks okay i see children and volvos and schools and investments that lead my focus astray so why are you still trying (so fucking hard) to fight the suburban dream when you know in the clenches of your soul it's what will make you happy?

don't you worry you'll figure it out just maybe not so soon ------------------------------ Act I: November 5th the air was orange tinted like somebody deep in the night peeled off the rind of a tangerine and stretched its skin over a flashlight who else could reside in that clementine but the physical manifestation of fear along with 30 patrons of a megabus and me in the 11th month of my 23rd year oh, i appeared of a cartoonish quality and my features were drawn on by hand i assure you my existence was human though the barrier of art makes it hard to understand i was a sketch of myself hardly a person, just an outline of one periodically erased after months of trepidation i ran through that friday then saturday was alcohol rife making sunday november the 5th the newest worst day of my life everything i've built everything i've become everyone i know everyone i love all the hours wasted all the minutes run dry all the nights i spent scrolling all the days i let by my days are getting away from me

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Act III: Don't You Worry I don't have it figured out and when i'm 40 and still reviewing i'll be like every adult out there who doesn't know what the hell they're doing that's the worst part of getting older you find your superheroes are fallible like you still hoping that their far-fetched teenage dreams will someday eventually come true so when i'm forced to ask the question is chasing my talent more lucrative that chasing my passion? then i've already lost the race don't you worry you'll figure it out soon when you realize your situation is something you can get through it's cliche to quote walt whitman but everything you do has to meet just one criterion whatever satisfies the soul is truth i'm knee deep in cookies and dipping my toes in whiskey a pathetically small amount so if i die young, at least they can't say the liquor killed me i'm a fighter of first world problems and this one is no different it just takes time to see what makes life worth living i'll crack my knuckles in such drama that the earth will likewise groan breaking fissures in itself to let me know in magnificent gesture "you're not alone" so don't you worry you'll figure it out soon to reiterate the phrase etched on paper in front of you everything you've ever done everything you'll ever do has to meet just one criterion whatever satisfies the soul is truth so don't you worry you'll figure it out soon the universe is dropping hints right in front of you if you trust upon your judgement that everything you'll ever do has to meet just one criterion whatever satisfies the soul is truth