Vandals, Krylon packed backpacks
Poking around, scoping out emotional real estate
tagged in focused braggadocious font
The hocus-pocus soaks a wall in slug slime, venom, all you hate
Cloaked in the shade of night, serrated blades sink right
between the vertebrae of someone that you'd call a friend
Flattened there, gelatinous, spatula flips a patty of a reputation
charred beyond recognition
But that's all they are
Doodles on a trapper keeper, drawn in pen
Whispers down a corridor, Doppler
Rumor mill hearsay conflated
Burn the bridge and bomb your side
Reinvent the archetype and
Read some self-help; really make
Mom and Dad super glad they fucked
Because you’re just a kid, first time he swore,
and felt the rush of the adults' attention
Never to share the plastic sword that you swing mighty from treetops
And slash the limbs of innocents
Man, I can almost see the ligaments,
purple, pinkish pigments, running underneath your skin
Like rice paper wrapped skeletons, ghostly lack of melanin
Yelling in your nightmares of a paper's edge
Rain ramped up by the hand sanitizer ocean
Off the coast of your guarded spaces
Tape window panes up, unfold your blankets
Make caves where your flashlight, black hearts can stay
But that's all they are
Italics in cyanide, poison print
Ipecac underlined fragments
Molotov cocktail quotations
Split your face, two equal sides
Hollywood until you die
Master the artistry of Fake
Spit out silver streams but it’s not enough
So you talk
Because you’re just a kid, first time he swore,
and felt the rush of the adult’s attention
Never to share the plastic sword that you swing mighty from treetops
And flash forward, you’re 86
Few family members hear you’re sick
When they’re speed-writing your brief obit
Never did too much but talked a bunch of shit
I'd fantasize about your guilt if I had killed myself
Show you how words deal violent blows and tangible fallout
Before we make you try new eyes to realign yourself
Let's take that brain out of your body and maybe see if that helps